New Plays

Sunny. The much heralded and horribly expensive show to celebrate Marilyn Miller's return from classic comedy (Peter Pan) has finally appeared and made for itself a noble name. It is unquestionably the most lavish musical comedy ever assembled and seems to suffer only through an excess of talent. By the middle of the second act you actually become a little weary of seeing celebrities running on and off with brief lines and a song here and there. The show lacks unity and a focal interest. As a five-dollar vaudeville show, it is the very best. Miss Miller plays a circus girl who marries a man on shipboard because she has neglected the formality of obtaining a passport. She ' never sang better (which is not saying so much) and she never danced better (which is saying everything). She seems to enjoy herself during working hours as does no other actress. Her assisting celebrities are Jack Donahue (funny), Clifton Webb, Mary Hay, Joseph Cawthorn, Dorothy Francis, Pert Kelton (new and welcome), Jerome Kern (who wrote the music), Olsen's Band (who play it), and Ukelele Ike.

The Pelican. From London a success of last season necessarily attracted attention since it came on the heels of The Vortex, of similar history, if for no other reason than that. Moreover Margaret Lawrence and that extraordinarily fine English actor, Fred Kerr, were playing the parts. Therefore everybody went in high expectancy-- was pretty sadly disappointed.

The Pelican turned out to be a long evening of talk concerning the duty of mothers to children. The mother split from her husband in her youth, had a child, and everybody did his or her duty by the offspring at the last. The concentrated philosophies and sacrifice of this last act compelled the spectator's interest. A program note quoted an old legend to the effect that the mother pelican draws blood from her own breast to feed her young.

Nobody was disappointed in the acting. Mr. Kerr obliged with his inevitable excellence. Margaret Lawrence gave what was probably her best performance since her return to the stage from private life three seasons or so back.

The Vagabond King. There appeared last season a strong market for good operetta, well costumed and well sung. To serve this trade, an old romance, If I Were King, was dug up, dusted off and set to some particularly good music by Rudolph Friml. It is a story of France under Louis XI, when Francois Villon, poet and leader of the underworld, was presented with the throne for 24 hours. He loves a noble lady and he defies the force of hostile Burgundy encamped without the gates. The story seemed ideally suited to this type of entertainment; the characters generally suited, vocally and otherwise, to their assignments. Best of all were the chorus work--really extraordinarily fine in its ensemble singing--and the costumes of James Reynolds. There was rather a lack of laughter, but it did not seem to matter. The Vagabond King is as good a romantic operetta as one can normally expect. In fact, far better.

The Butter and Egg Man. A

half score or more years ago George S. Kaufman wrote a musical comedy with Marc Connelly and peddled it about the town without success (it was produced eventually as Be Yourself and ran for several months) ; then Dulcy; To the Ladies; Merton of the Movies; Helen of Troy, New York; The Beggar on Horseback; and Minick. With the exception of the last, which he wrote with Edna Ferber, he has collaborated on these plays with Mr. Connelly. This year they split, Mr. Kaufman's first musical by himself will be The Cocoanuts, for the Marx Brothers, and his first play is The Butter and Egg Man.

Talking shop is, according to the conventional supposition, a poor method of entertaining your visitors. Mr. Kaufman talks shop and entertains his visitors as thoroughly as they may be entertained anywhere in town. His shop is the Theatre in which he works; his characters, people of the Theatre and the strange drift of folk who gather on its edges. His method is satirical and his result a genuine comedy.

In brief, he selects a hapless youth just in Manhattan from Chillicothe with $22,000 in the bank. Two wolves of the stage jump at him and drop away with the bankroll in their jaws. He becomes a partner in their play, Her Lesson; sees it fail miserably at the first performance in Syracuse; buys it in a fit of anger; and makes it a wild success on Broadway. Coincidental possibly, is this plot; life, particularly theatrical life, is not like that. No one knows it better than Mr. Kaufman.

Gregory Kelly, best recalled as Willie Baxter in Seventeen is his "Butter and Egg Man*," and a better performance could not be desired. Sylvia Field is the little stenographer with whom he falls in love, and Lucille Webster is the wisecracking elderly female who used to juggle Indian clubs in vaudeville.

Harvest. This rather sombre drama of the farm country was saved chiefly by authenticity of atmosphere and two exceptionally competent performances. Louise Closser Hale, one of the best of our grey-haired actresses, played the farm mother, and Augustin Duncan, her suspendered husband, was as close to perfection as the author could have hoped.

This rural couple had a daughter who went wrong with a suave youth from the city. At the time of this fall from virtue there had been no fall of rain for many weeks. The climax came when the old couple learned of their daughter's dereliction. At about the same moment there came the patter of raindrops on the roof. The dusty years through which rain for the crops had come to be their cardinal concern had their effect. They cheered for the rain and forgot the family honor.

Dearest Enemy. Back in the days when the scarlet coated forces of the Crown were warring with the Colonists, it happened that one evening General Putnam at the Battery (New York) was obliged to join General Washington on Harlem Heights. Failure to meet this obligation might have meant annihilation of the rebel army. Unfortunately the British were encamped at Kip's Bay, half way up the island, and it was necessary to distract their attention while Putnam made his march that evening. A certain Mrs. Murray undertook the task, gave a party, and kept all the enemy generals so drunk that Putnam's men slid by unnoticed.

This legend has been made the basis of a musical comedy, of which the costumes, the music and the leading lady (Helen Ford) are decidedly first rate although humor and interest drag a bit through the middle and final sections.

Easy Terms. Crane Wilbur you may recall as a movie actor. He also wrote a mildly terrifying play called The Monster. He has written another play and is acting in it. It is chiefly a satire on small family life; amusing at first and finally monotonous. Donald Meek, who was the exceedingly accomplished father in The Potters, gives a performance that helps materially. ...

Human Nature. The Nugent family write plays and usually act in them. All of them, J. C., Elliott and Ruth, acted in Kempy, which J. C. and Elliott wrote, and it was a sound success. Elliott is currently acting in The Poor Nut (TIME, May 11), which he and his father also wrote, and it is a success of some months' standing. Between them they have written a couple of failures, plays that were not important but certainly not disastrous. They have abruptly tripped up on a black domestic story of a man married to a helpless invalid. None of them is acting in it, which is just as well, for the first night audience objected to it sharply, and laughed at the most poignant passages.

The New Gallantry. At the risk of seeming cantankerous the survey must report another feeble piece. It is about a girl who found life in America tedious after intense weeks of welfare work in France. Determining to take a lover, she selects a huge tramp who happens to be resting not far off. In the face of harsh disapproval in the neighborhood, she declares him to be a battle bridegroom from her days in France. Caroll McComas is the lady, pleasantly enough.

Merry Merry. A musical comedy of and for chorus girls, danced in and made a mild impression. It is a small show with a plot, a lot of limber leg work, a good score and an excellent heroine. Marie Saxon is this heroine, pretty, an amazingly good dancer, and hitherto little known. The score has a number called "It Must Be Love," which should be no small item in radio evenings during the winter. General dancing is enjoyed by all. The plot, having to do with an innocent chorus girl at large on Broadway, is capable but not comical.

*An individual from out of town with the milk of human kindness in his heart and the root of all evil in his trousers pocket.