Claire Trevor as Sister George

'Sister George' unusual for laughter and woe

By Peter Bellamy,

Claire Trevor, who has been in 150 moving pictures and won an Academy Award for her performance in "Key Largo," opens a week's engagement as the star of "The Killing of Sister George" at the Hanna Theater tomorrow night.

It was in London some, 18 months ago that with a feeling of revulsion I went to see this play, which had been selected by English drama critics as the "best of the year."

The reason that I was prejudiced "against the play in advance was because its central character, plus two others, are lesbians, and I find the parading of compulsive sexual aberrations on stage personally repellent.

Great was my surprise when I remained to laugh a good deal and to be touched by the pathos and tragedy of the play.

That nasty, pointless, tasteless play, "The Homecoming," last year won the Tony Award as the best play of the year on Broadway. Better it had been "The Killing of Sister George," which also received a Tony nomination in the same category.

Both of these plays deal with abnormal people, but "The Killing of Sister George" is definitely based in reality. Miss Trevor and I agree that we have seen counterparts of Sister George in the fields of arts and the advertising business. This cigar-smoking mannish woman is magnificently drawn from life.

The comedy and laughter of the play come not from the situation, but from the conversation, and it is a widely known fact that homosexuals of both sexes frequently have brilliant minds and a superlatively sharp sense of humor.

The barreness of the lesbian's life and the more than frequent ephemeral quality of her liasons is pointed up. At the end, Sister George is deserted and disgraced-keening like a wounded animal. Playwright Frank Marcus has written an authentic play-both comic and tragic.

As Arthur Cavanaugh wrote in the Sign, a national Catholic magazine, in January of 1967:

"The best new play of the season is unquestionably "The Killing of Sister George."" It seems also to have brought with it a lurid reputation.

Entertainment Editor

"To state that Marcus' trenchantly written, tightly controlled play is about lesbians, and thus squalid, is as pertinent as to describe 'Hamlet' as a play about Danes. It won't make your view of life a rosy glow, but you will find it hard to forget.'

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The word "sister" in England is used to denote a nurse, and Sister George is a woman who plays the role of a noble, sugar-sweet nurse on a folksy and phenominally successful TV show for the British Broadcasting System. The play, incidentally, aims crushing satire at the BBC.

Miss Trevor, who is married and the mother of three children, said that she had no qualms about playing a lesbian on stage.

"They are human beings and are cursed with an affliction or psychological illness for which they are not to blame," she said in a phone interview in Washington, D.C.

The only potentially sickening part of the role, she continued, is that she has to smoke cigars for it.

"I am a heavy cigarette smoker," she said, "and I inhale. I try to remember not to inhale the cigars, but once in a while I forget and it makes me feel like throwing up."

No benefits will ever have to be held for Miss Trevor. Her husband, Milton Bren, film producer and industrialist, owns considerable real estate along Los Angeles' famed "Strip."

"He practically started the "Strip' and began to buy property along it when it was only a Macadam road," she said. "It's nearer Beverly Hills than downtown Los Angeles so it has not deteriorated in value. He's also built a block of buildings.

"My son, Donald, has been an enormously successful building contractor. He's built shopping centers and scads of houses for housing developments.

Also starred in "The Killing of Sister George" is Natalie Schafer, with Patricia Sinnott and Polly Rowles, who also appeared in the Broadway production. Miss Schafer for the last three years has starred in the TV show "Gilligan's Island."