New Plays

The Glass Slipper. Think of Cinderella if her dream had not come true. Think of Cinderella in the guise of a dreamy servant girl of Budapest; in love with a grey-haired prince, who scolded her cruelly and ate potatoes with his knife. Think finally of Cinderella serving at his wedding to a greedy old harridan with money. Under such circumstances Cinderella might have taken to the streets. Molnar's did. There was a final act in a police court, in which the beauty and the poignancy of her suffering grew to a glowing climax.

After one of the early nights of the run, a brilliantly dressed young husband and wife were heard to remark on leaving that the evening was an insult. Probably it is a trifle too true for their correct intelligence. Yet in deference to just such correct intelligence the Theatre Guild expurgated the play the evil-minded--and still immensely moving to the thoughtful.

June Walker, giving her second performance in a play which may be conventionally described as emotional as opposed to the farce roles she played so entertainingly, is extraordinarily effective. Last year it was Processional she did so well. It is to be feared that The Glass Slipper will have a limited appeal, as did that biting experiment. Yet the time is coming when she will find a play that is popular as well as cutting and profound. Then will she be known through the length at the fourth performance, and it is now nearly harmless--even to and breadth of the broad land as one of the finest younger actresses on a stage whose younger actresses are certainly its soundest asset.

The Enemy. Of all the shrewd artificers of the Theatre there is none in this country superior to Channing Pollock. In The Fool he made a million dollars (for someone) and made a million people weep by employing the obvious emotional devices of religion in a commercial play. He has used the correspondingly obvious emotional devices of war in The Enemy and will probably reap vast rewards. To one practiced in the Theatre or toa layman fastidious in the matter of emotional stimuli, it will sound like the cry of wolf, wolf. And, curiously enough, Mr. Pollock is said to believe that he is a great evangelist of human faith and progress. Probably such a belief is necessary to such a play. Without faith one cannot be furiously one-sided.

The Enemy is a play to end war. It shows an Englishman in a friendly Australian home before the War, shows the hatred that blackens friendship as war breaks. All the abvious tear-squeezers are used-- drums, marching feet and a baby starving to death. It will probably be considered by the masses to be a masterpiece.

Arabesque. Norman-Bel Geddes is the unchallenged genius of scenic design in this country. It was he who designed The Miracle. He has, strangely enough, an urge to direct rather than design exclusively. He directed Eva Le Gallienne in a play by Mercedes d'Acosta about "Jehanne" d'Arc in Paris last summer, and set back by a couple of decades the never too robust artistic reputation of America in the eyes of the French.

For much the same reason that the Paris venture was inefficient, the present play falters. It is a succession of gorgeous scenic designs rather than a play. It is a story of Tunis, desert love, with various European decorations. It was described revealingly by one critic as a Visual opera. As such it is one of the most exciting pictures you will ever see in the legitimate Theatre. As drama it is skinny and undernourished.

The School for Scandal. Last June a once prominent ingenue emerged from the formidable fastnesses of Chicago society and stepped once more upon the stage. She was Mrs. Samuel Insull and is Gladys Wallis, or vice versa according to your chronological viewpoint. She was at that time playing for charity. Hard cash from Chicago pockets and soft words from Chicago critics persuaded Mrs. Insull once more to woo the muse. These things being so and duly recorded for your information, let it be noted that had the production come out of a clear sky rather than from the gusty, wealthy horizons of Chicago, it would probably have made no noise at all.

It is one of those thoroughly capable productions, blending experience and taste, and letting the whole down with lack of inspiration. Mrs. Insull makes a very fair Lady Teazle, such a Lady Teazle as six or eight of our moderately well known actresses could approximate without overworking. With one or two exceptions her cast was competent; their costumes particularly attractive.

Almost any production of The School for Scandal would be an ornament to a season. Mrs. Insult's is admirable and thorough. Only the recent practise of presenting it with all-star casts renders her effort merely a front rank production instead of one strutting out ahead with the generals.

Lucky Sam McCarver. Sidney Howard's first play since the prize winning They Knew What They Wanted is not a great addition to the dramatic family. It is an interesting, efficient and sometimes pertinently profane story of a man of the people. Lucky Sam (John Cromwell) rose from the scrubby ranks to a position of great importance among the city's tougher tribes. He conducted the smartest and the hardest of the night clubs. He married one of his most persistent patrons from society (Clare Eames). He hated it.

Clare Eames is Playwright Howard's wife and appears to him, no doubt, a marvelous temptress. Others are inclined to regard her as an exceptionally good actress with a rather stony stare. She has manners and manner, for which the new role cries. John Cromwell is a sound enough actor in the title part--a part which was offered to Lionel Barrymore and snatched from that eager gentleman's hands because he considered it wise to .cast Irene Fenwick as Mrs. Lucky Sam. Irene Fenwick is, of course, Mrs. Lionel Barrymore.

Antonia. Marjorie Rambeau is the bright particular personality of this endeavor. After a year or two of rather uncertain prominence in the Theatre she has taken what seems to be a new lease on her natural ability. Some regard her presence on the stage as a trifle brassy; if you are not one of these, Antonia should be a very fair evening's entertainment.

Miss Rambeau plays the toast of Budapest several years after she has grown cold. She is married to a prosperous farmer when the call comes to return for just one evening to the old life. Diamonds and champagne and gypsy music stifle the stolid virtues of the prosperous granary. The trip is, however, accomplished without immoderate-moral mishap, and her only difficulty is in explaining to her husband the next morning the presence of two gay dogs who have brought the cafe band to play under her rural windows as the sun comes up.