New Plays

The Mongrel. Rudolph Schildkraut is known generally as a distinguished German actor and specifically as the star of the malodorous God of Vengeance. The Theatre Guild has never kept its promise to bewhisker him as Lear. In the interim, he picked upon a dreary Continental comedy about a dead dog. A formidable forester kills a roadmender's (Mr. Schildkraut) one-eyed, friendly little Sniffy. He mourns. He tries to strangle the murderer's daughter. A motley group of assistants were cast to further Mr. Schildkraut's playing. Neither they nor the play sufficed. The star's performance chiefly incited the audience to prophecies of the great time to come when someone found a part to try his talents.

Alexander Woollcott--"A. fine gifted, resourceful actor, this elder Schildkraut, who wandered lonesome through an old comedy."

The Sap. Manhattan, which turns up its long round nose at the rest of the theatrical sphere, had to wait. A season and a half it waited for Raymond Hitchcock without music. After a gross or more of hamlets and several cities had seen the gutteral comedian in The Old Soak and The Sap, Manhattan caught its glimpse. Manhattan took one look and decreed that comedy unsung becomes him thoroughly.

Comedy is, of course, a relative term, particularly in The Sap's case. For a whole act, there is little but domestic wrangling because the Sap dislikes earning a salary. One of the objectors embezzles money and excitement surges to the rescue. The Sap flows silently out of town with $50,000 additional embezzlement, flows back with a fortune, saves everybody.

The producers were so perfectly sure Raymond Hitchcock was good that they didn't bother with the rest of the cast. They bought a pretty cheap imitation of The Show-Off for a play. Except for Mr. Hitchcock, the proceedings were somewhat dejected. Except for Mr. Hitchcock.

Quarantine. The Helen Hayes controversy is at large again. Critics proclaim her one of the greatest of the young actresses. Certain private observers, of advertised intelligence, insist that she is nothing but a fluffy personality done up in a bundle of mannerisms. Popularly, she is a magnet of considerable importance. The controversy will not be stilled until the Theatre Guild proves somebody wrong by thrusting upon her the responsibilities of Shaw's Cleopatra. In the interim, her performance will probably keep Henry Miller's Theatre in Quarantine for several weeks.

Miss Hayes plays a pert and pleasant child who elopes in another woman's place. The elopement ship is segregated owing to a whisper about bubonic plague. The girl and the man, unmarried, are further segregated in a little bungalow. Comes the night. Eventually, it develops that she was in love with him all the time and substituted for the other woman to win herself a husband. This genial parable is told in the lightest mood. Thin ice is skillfully avoided. Subsidiary characters are drawn and played adroitly. Sidney Blackmer is the male in the matter, giving his best performance since The Mountain Man, Like many light entertainments, the piece is quick enough to catch the auditor's approval.

Gilbert W. Gabriel--"The bacillus of good humor has no trouble multiplying."

Stark Young --"Got nowhere enter tainingly, said nothing engagingly and ended to rounds of applause."