New Plays

By W. R.

Spring Cleaning. Critics observe that every dramatist is bound by the inevitable to write before his span of life is done a play in which a street walker walks into a drawing room unannounced. She usually walks out again leaving a group of idle rich attempting to reassemble the fragments of their devastated philosophy. Such is the current effort of Frederick Lonsdale, Englishman, author of Aren't We All. Inserting his tiny needle point of humor into this familiar situation, he has injected various stimulating charges of the unexpected. He sustains, therefore, the interest.

He blames the whole thing on the pretty wife who has succumbed to the diverting futility of doing nothing. He has surrounded her with a group of exceedingly rarefied representatives of London's smart society. He has attached her to a husband who disapproves. His--the husband's-- conversation is a trifle dull and his necktie lacks a certain trim orthodoxy. They could hardly be expected to get on.

The husband, finding himself incompetent to steer the situation, summons reinforcements. The latter materialize as the little scarlet sister of the evening. The play is too entirely well-bred to permit the husband to cast his lot with hers. Therefore, another set of epigrams is required to rewind their domestic top and set it spinning.

The play revels in an abundance of good acting, with particularly satis- factory contributions by Arthur Byron, A. E. Matthews, Estelle Winwood.

Percy Hammond: "The play has a vast appeal for those who know their way about."

Alexander Woollcott: " Suave but murderous dialogue in which the opposing characters are hating each other bitterly and doing it with a smile."

Stepping Stones. Fred Stone, whose comedy is a cherished tradition of the present-day American stage, has found a lineal descendant to perpetuate his name. His daughter Dorothy made her debut in a new Stone show, and in the three short hours of the opening night she danced her way to the regions of the stars. Twice in that memorable performance the critical first night audience rose to its feet to give her personal ovations. It is doubtful that any individual performer ever gleaned more glory from a first appearance on Broadway.

Dorothy Stone is 17, slight, with light, bobbed hair, and looks too much like her father to be pretty. She sings only moderately well. But she dances like a firefly on a Summer evening. She has that inestimable gift of natural vivacity; she has distinctive personality; is carefree and entirely irresistible.

The remainder of the entertainment is exactly what Stone's followers for 21 years have been trained to expect. Dorothy Stone is the poor girl; she marries the disguised Prince. Father Fred is Peter Plug, a plumber, who stands by in every scene to protect her from the villainous hardships set upon a musical comedy heroine. Mother Stone (Allene Crater) also plays a prominent part and marries Peter Plug at the last--to the wild delight of the audience.

Though the music is uninspired and the humor of a decidedly wrinkled variety, the final effect is a little bit better than that of previous Stone shows latterly wending their way around the country.

Percy Hammond: "A very happy family affair."

Heywood Broun: "This young Stone girl is by all odds the most exciting and glamorous person who has hopped out upon the musical comedy stage in this generation."

A Love Scandal. There is nothing more harrowing than a group of intelligent people standing around repeating epigrams that don't ep. The actors and actresses assembled for this diversion are eminently intelligent individuals led by no less a personage than the immaculate Norman Trevor. Their lines are made of lead; the authors tried to be Oscar Wilde and collapsed under the strain. The plot deals with a young woman who married a millionaire only to discover she loved a penniless playwright. When the latter became wealthy on three suddenly successful plays, she found the situation distinctly trying. But her sufferings were as nothing compared with those of the audience.

The Deep Tangled Wildwood.

George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly (authors of Dulcy, To the Ladies, Merton of the Movies) have finally missed fire. Their satirical comedy of a man who went back home to escape the city and found the home town in the clutches of jazz is unsubstantial. Though studded with smart lines, it lacks sustaining plot. Added to this, the acting is only moderately well tuned to the spirit of the satire.

White Cargo. Another theatrical treatise on the more acute applications of the sex problem has appeared to vex the censors. The scene is desert land in Africa; the characters, a group of sex-starved white men circling about one exceedingly abandoned mulatto woman. The play is on the order of Bain; it approximates but faintly the extraordinary power of that discussion. Considerable excellent acting is dissipated on unworthy material.

Bide Dudley: "Don't take your old Aunt Eliza from Pottersville to see it or she may disinherit you."