{
  "title": "FARM OF THREE ECHOES",
  "category": "[STAGE-PLAY]",
  "article": "[Time, December 11, 1939] “A piece of monstrous twaddle, so old-fashioned as to be almost\nrefreshing, it concerns three generations of a hot-blooded Boer family who live somewhere on the\nveldt. The husbands systematically bully the wives, and the wives systematically bump off the\nhusbands. Home life, between whiles, is saved from monotony by Satan (who arrives so\npunctually each day he could just as well deliver the mail), assorted ghosts, the old lady’s coffin\n(which, pending its final function, she uses as a kind of chaise lounge), windstorms, shotguns,\nsluts from the city and the black influenza.\n“Miss Barrymore refuses to let all this give anybody the creeps. Seldom offstage, and extremely\nvocal, blunt and racy when on, she plays her role with a huge gusto and humor that never\ndegenerate into caricature.”\nThe play ran for 48 performances from November 28, 1939 through January 6, 1940 at the Cort\nTheatre. The setting is the Gerart farm, Orange Free State, South Africa. The characters are Ouma\nGerart (Ethel Barrymore), Isaac Gerart (Ouma’s son), Lisha Gerart (Ouma’s daughter-in-law),\nLogenhoofen, Saul Portenaar, Dyke Hesse, Jan Gerart (Ouma’s grandson), Naomi deMeer, Marie\nHesse.\n“Ouma Gerart, who has lived all her life on a South African farm, is 97 years old and still alert.\nWhen she was younger and could no longer stand the brutal treatment of her husband she slipped\na loaded shell into a gun he was cleaning and he blew his head off. Now her daughter-in-law,\nLisha, is having husband trouble with her brutal mate, Isaac Gerart. She cuts his saddle girth, his\nhorse pitches him off and he breaks his neck. Comes Jan Gerart, Ouma’s grandson, and, knowing\nwhat he does, he  is reluctant to marry the orphaned Naomi deMeer for fear, if he becomes cruel,\nshe will also do away with him. It takes considerable drama to bring Jan and Naomi together.”\n[“In New York with Dale Harrison”] “Few who have seen ‘The Farm of Three Echoes’ have been\nable to make up their minds whether it is melodrama or comedy. Several have referred to it as\n‘South African Tobacco Road’…\n“Whatever it is, ‘The Farm of Three Echoes’ is something to see. The Barrymore is delightful as a\ngently mad woman who loves to nap in her coffin in the attic or sit by the fire and listen for the\nfootsteps of ‘Old Satan come to claim his own.’ There is one moment when the action is so tense\nthat people in the audience cry out in horrified surprise—an unusual tribute from a New York\naudience.”\n[Mason City Globe-Gazette] “Ethel Barrymore and the entire cast of ‘Farm of Three Echoes’\nappear in Columbia’s ‘Texaco Star Theater’ production of the Broadway success when the New\nYork half of this hour-long show is heard…\n“According to Burns Mantle, noted drama critic and best plays anthologist, it is the first time a\nBroadway production has been given for radio before going on tour.\n“’Farm of Three Echoes’ has been condensed to a half-hour show with Miss Barrymore and\nothers playing the parts they had in the stage version.”\n[Helen Craig, I.N.S.] “She has a wandering mind which sees ghosts one minute and cracks out\nhorse sense the next, but her limbs are as spry as a girl and she handles a shotgun with a steel\nwrist and beady eye. The first night audience was so demused (?) by grandma’s antics at her age\nthat the plot, a shivery tale of family hate on the African veldts, went by somewhat neglected.”\n“The New York Times says that Ethel Barrymore…is planning to appear in ‘Farm of Three\nEchoes’ next fall. In this piece she will play a woman who sleeps in a coffin and utters witches’\nprophecies of doom. Dame May Whitty appeared in the play in London in 1935 and is said to be\ninterested in a New York production as well.”\n[Variety, December 6, 1939] “…it appears that the demons that have been riding the Gerart men\nrelentlessly through the generations are going to bring back still another harvest of tragedy and\nhate. But the ancient Ouma, after frightening the young bride into hysteria and the audience half\nout of its wits, takes a shotgun off the wall and ties up the plot-ends into a satisfying climax… It’s a\nsort of combination ‘Tobacco Road’ and ‘Beyond the Horizon’… It could be adapted into a chilling\npicture.”\n[New York Times, Brook Atkinson] “…a South African farming family in which the men folk\ncarry on an evil tradition…doors open mysteriously, the wind howls around the edge of the\nhouse…”\n[New York Herald Tribune, Richard Watts Jr.] “…drama about ghosts on the Veldt… Ghosts,\nwisely taken for granted and not impersonated by actors, dart about from time to time… When\nshe announces cheerily that Satan is on his way you have no doubt of it… The sight of old Ouma\nguarding her coffin with a shotgun or challenging the devil to come in and do battle with her in\nperson…”",
  "origination": "WABC, New York City, New York (CBS).",
  "duration": "January 24, 1940.",
  "personnel": "CAST: Ethel Barrymore (Ouma Gerart), Ann Dere (Lisha Gerart), Victor Esker (Logenhoofen), Eduard Franz\n(Saul Portenaar), John Griggs (Dyke Hesse), Dean Jagger (Jan Gerart), McKay Morris (Isaac Gerart),\nPriscilla Newton (Naomi deMeer), Nancy Sheridan (Marie Hesse).",
  "extant_recordings": "None.\n[PROGRAM LOG]\nTEXACO STAR THEATRE (WABC, NEW YORK)\n[Wednesday—9:00-10:00]\nJanuary 24, 1940\n“Farm of Three Echoes”\n[“…Ethel Barrymore plays Ouma, that coffin-loving South African\ngrandmother of ‘The Farm of Three Echoes,’ in which she was seen on E\nstreet earlier in the season. The relish with which she played the talkative\nold lady brought her critical acclaim…”]\nEXTANT RECORDING",
  "chronology": "",
  "sources": "",
  "gallery": "",
  "images": []
}