New Plays

The Magnolia Lady. Ruth Chatterton is not a good musical comedienne. She sings only mildly and dances doubtfully. Her charm is forced a trifle out of focus by the unfamiliar medium and her emotional accomplishments are not required. Her experiment behind an orchestra is therefore declared an error.

She was hampered somewhat, it is true, by a leisurely and meagerly humored book. The music, too, was uneventful. The combination was based on the kindly comedy Come out of the Kitchen, in which Miss Chatterton starred some seasons past.

Dawn broke somewhat unpleasantly behind a cloudy sky of incontinent youth. Two young ladies found themselves abruptly young but no more ladies. One committed suicide on the fringes of a house party and the other lived and married the man she loved. A puritanical papa who objected most determinedly to these unfortunate adventures was argued down by his wife on the grounds that she, too, in the days of her youth had subdivided her virginity. She had made a good wife. Daughter would make a good wife.

All this is, of course, in re the younger generation. The young ladies are plentifully petted and cocktailed. Most of it is dull and arrantly absurd. Emma Dunn, as the mother, reinforces it with the single striking performance.

They Knew What They Wanted. Seldom in the memory of U. S. theatrophiles have such ecstatics emanated from the critics as those greeting this play, the second of the Theatre Guild's season. Never, in the history of the Theatre Guild, has the demand for seats been so importunate. Never has an author had more cause to be complacent than has Sidney Howard, nor an actress and actor than Pauline Lord and Richard Bennett.

Yet edging unaccountably under this wild and high hurrah certain skeptics have discerned a hollow note. A minor note to be sure, and one that detracts only slightly from the aggregate rejoicing. Yet this note is sufficient to persuade these sceptics that They Knew What They Wanted is not a great play and that the performance of Mr. Bennett is undeserving of hysterical superlative. Of the performance of Miss Lord too much can scarcely be said, and therein lies the situation's key.

It will be recalled that this actress was welcomed by the London critics as one of the greatest of Americans (in Anna Christie). Her interpretation of the unlettered waitress who married by mail in the present play substantiates their judgment. So brilliantly did she play the part, so perfectly defined were her weaknesses and pathos, so irresistible her reading of the wistful lines that she swept the audience from its mental moorings. It is the opinion of these skeptics that to Miss Lord alone is due the thorough public triumph.

She marries by mail and arrives at the vineyard farm in California to find that her prospective husband, an old Italian, has tricked her by sending in place of his own, the photograph of his youthful, wayward, farm hand. The deception discovered, she concludes that even old Tony is preferable to the spaghettied dreariness of her 'Frisco job. Tony breaks both his legs just before the wedding and three months pass. The girl is with child by the farm hand Joe. In a severe and somewhat artificial climax Tony, whom she has mean while come to love, retains her as his wife.

Mr. Bennett's portrait of the voluble old vineyard-keeper is technically adept, artful in appearance, but often lacking in absolute conviction. Glenn Anders does incomparably the best work of his career as the farm hand. The remainder of the production is managed with the usual surety and vigor of the Theatre Guild.

It remains only to be said that the dialog is dotted with the most consistently severe profanity of any play within memory.

Heywood Broun --"Pauline Lord gave the finest performance I have ever seen."

My Girl. If you are one of the agreeable nomads who blend with the hurrying theatre crowds only occasionally, this play may seem acceptable. It is a musical essay on the trials of Prohibition. The fact that a good many of the lines are frayed with age will not depress you. Yet, if you are a suspicious theatregoer from the midst of the metropolis where a good joke is an old joke in a week, you are cautioned quietly against it.

The music is generally excellent. The chorus is more important than the cast.