New Plays

The Vanities. After running one show all summer, Earl Carroll despatched it to the provinces and followed with an entirely new edition. He kept Julius Tannen, bits of scenery and probably a chorus girl here and there. He added Frank Tinney and Joe Cook, many songs and much nonsense. It was with some horror that the opening night attendants heard Mr. Tinney jest gleefully about his recent marital disturbance. Otherwise he was funny. Mr. Cook was exceedingly amusing in his own peculiar way, and on the whole people had a good time.

By the Way. Another English revue is upon us. Managers have been gazing enviously at the grossly successful show of Mr. Chariot and laying plans how to borrow shares of his gold and glory. By the Way is a London success of many months and employs two principal British entertainers, Jack Hulbert and Cecily Courtneidge. It is terribly, terribly English, and for the first half very good fun. The second act fails to sustain the brisk supply of sketch and song. There is the usual British reticence in the matter of glowing scenery and costumes encrusted with emeralds. The piece has personality rather than pretense. It has also a complete English chorus, which oddly enough is highly decorative.

Tip-Toes. When Lady, Be Good made its immense success, the producers determined its companion piece should be no whit less entertaining. They engaged the same authors and the brilliant George Gershwin for the tunes. Queenie Smith, Andrew Tombes, Allen Kearns and Harry Watson were collected for the principal parts. Considerable cash and no little taste went into scenery and clothing. The net result is 'excellent, but many feel it just a trifle below the astonishingly high standard of the earlier display.

There is a plot about a trio of vaudeville entertainers who try to crash society at Palm Beach. True love meets a millionaire and matters are amicably concluded. Miss Smith again demonstrates that she can dance, sing and be funny a little better than almost any other comedienne. Mr. Tombes and Mr. Watson, aided by good material, are pretty ridiculous.

Best of everything was Mr. Gershwin's music. Three songs, "Looking for a Boy," "These Charming People" and particularly "Sweet and Low Down," will rattle in your ears from every phonograph and loudspeaker for many months.

This man-monkey falls in love with a little wire-walker, who is also the object of his master's affections. The other man is handsome and the monkey loses, but only after some bizarre and often engrossing intrigue.

The play was worst at fault in the adaptation. So daintily and agreeably were most of the characters drawn that life seemed to desert them. Nevertheless excellent acting was in evidence, in addition to M. Lerner's, from Philip Merivale and Martha Bryan-Allen.

Stronger than Love. Dario Nicodemi is fulsomely reported by various interested parties as the "best playwright of Italy," a claim which the adherents of Pirandello might dispute with some acidity, particularly on the basis of Signer Nicodemi's two plays this season. Stolen Fruit (TIME, Oct. 19) was the fair first and this is the bad second. It is a play of mother sacrifice for an unnamed son of her husband, whom she came to hate when the intruding offspring grew up to oust her own firstborn from his inheritance.

Nance O'Neil, in whom are many talents except the one which makes the audience believe her, has the lead.