The Best Plays

These are the plays which in the light of metropolitan criticism seem most important.

LOYALTIES--The adventures of a rich and disagreeable Jew, persecuted by amiable clubmen, prove that conflicts in loyalties may bring disaster. The play is always interesting, if somewhat theatric.

THE SEVENTH HEAVEN -- Helen Menken begins as the timorous sister of an absinthe-soaked shrew, but at the end of the second act, her courage restored by love, she turns on the sister and lashes her with a black whip.

RAIN--A devastating attack on the missionary who uses the Bible as a club to drive lost sheep into the fold. The play is distinguished by Jeanne Eagels' acting and by real rain falling dismally throughout.

MERTON OF THE MOVIES--A skilful dramatization of Harry Leon Wilson's story of the movie-struck youth who quite unintentionally becomes a great comedian, with a corresponding loss of illusions.

WILL SHAKESPEARE--Shakespeare is represented as a sort of divine sponge. When properly squeezed by a woman, an immortal play trickles out. Squeezing is done by the overpossessive wife whom he deserts (Winifred Lenihan); by Queen Elizabeth (Haidee Wright) ; and chiefly by the " dark lady of the sonnets " (Katherine Cornell). It is these three stirring performers who make Will Shakespeare excellent.

MOSCOW ART THEATRE--It is a very trifling barrier that the Moscow players use their native tongue. The reality and expressiveness of the performance make broader meanings as clear as daylight and inconceivably moving. This is the most justly famous group of actors in the world. Plays by Tchekov, Gorki, Tolstoi, are presented.

ROMEO AND JULIET -- Jane Cowl and Rollo Peters offer a vitalized Romeo and Juliet. The interpretation is not notable for subtlety or profundity. Careless enthusiasm is its chief charm.

THE GOD OF VENGEANCE--The daughter of a Polish Jew, keeper of a brothel, falls a victim to her environment in a repulsively explicit scene with a Lesbian. Rudolph Schildkraut makes the father's misery immensely moving.

PEER GYNT--Ibsen's poetic phantasmagoria of self-sufficient compromise, with expressionist settings Joseph Schildkraut is the braggart Peer, whose age and locality change with equal celerity.

KIKI--Lenore Ulric as the little Parisienne who is not quite naughty and altogether captivating. A year on Broadway has not exhausted her supply of enthusiastic audiences.