Road Companies

Theatre business on "the road" has fallen off alarmingly the last two years. This, conclude many authorities, is due to the fact that the risque, sophisticated productions of Broadway accord poorly with the sterner attitude of less teeming cities. But plans for next year indicate that "the road" will see more of the best.

Minnie Maddern Fiske, Margaret Anglin, Harrison Grey Fiske, announce a "migratory dramatic institution" whose Broadway appearance will be merely incidental to an itinerary that will include scores of cities. The Merry Wives of Windsor, Shakespeare's farce in which wenching Falstaff involves himself in domestic infelicity and intrigue, will tour 30 weeks. Otis Skinner, "guest star," is to joggle about in the role of the urbane rogue. The plan is to present modern U. S. and European plays on occasion but, for the most part, to produce "classics."

The same autumn 1927) that Mrs. Fiske starts her tour, the Theatre Guild of New York will launch a "road" enterprise. Four plays, Mr. Pirn Passes By, The Silver Cord, The Guardsman, Arms & the Man, will be presented in principal cities by a permanent company of Broadway actors under Guild supervision. The plays noted are among the most successful in the repertory.

The Actors Theatre also plans to expand into a greater, national institution. Under the brilliant direction of Guthrie McClintic, it sprang suddenly from an obscure, uncoordinated giant organization into what may yet become the most potent, impressively endowed theatre company in the world. With numberless artists at its disposal, it needs only a few more plays like Saturday's Children to carry Director McClintic's vaulting ambition over the first hurdle. He hopes, eventually, to gather a permanent company of over 200 actors, whose province, necessarily, will include theatres far from Manhattan. All this may not come about next season but it indicates that those closest to the theatre's pulse are aware of arteries beyond Broadway.

New Plays

Honeymooning is a rowdyish jamboree, in which only the naive may find a modicum of unsophisticated amusement. The bridegroom plays dead on his wedding night, while the bride repents the cruelty that supposedly made him commit suicide and the in-laws communicate through spiritualistic medium with his table-rapping soul. Every now and then, he skips out of the coffin to pound someone on the head, then jumps back in again. No one catches him. Antics drive the farce out of the ridiculous into the absurd. The odd things about it are: 1) It was written by Hatcher Hughes, who is a professor of Columbia University and the author of a Pulitzer prize play, Hell Bent fer Heaven; 2) The cast acted, directed, produced the piece, after the original sponsor had given it up as hopeless.

Menace. The victim deserved to die, but not the hero-murderer, decides the warden, whereupon he allows the condemned man to escape on the day of execution. The hero-murderer escapes to an isle in Japan, where he is protected, cherished, wooed by the beautiful native princess. Yet in high tones freighted with irony, he insists there is no God. Along comes the warden's daughter accompanied by a detective and fiance (extremely villainous) to recapture the escaped man, in order that the warden, her father, may be absolved of the escape. The Japanese princess decides to kill the foreigners, in order to save the hero for herself. The hero decides to go back with the foreigners out of regard for the warden's beautiful daughter. The natives attack. The whites prepare to sell themselves dearly. Suddenly the Japanese heroine sacrifices her personal affection to save her lover. He goes away, she weeps. It sounds like Rudyard Kipling and Madame Butterfly on a hurdy-gurdy.

That French Lady. Louis Mann & wife, Clara Lipman, have returned to the stage. Louis Mann as Karl Kraft is a high-German-American who feels prickly at the mere mention of "France." His annoyance mounts to sputtering frenzy when son Karl sails home from the War with a middle-aged French dowager (Clara Lipman). His indignation vanishes, however, in the last act, when it is disclosed that the elderly Frenchwoman is not Karl's bride, but Karl's mother-in-law. The chic Toinette appears soon after, carrying the family grandson, unhappily dropped during one of the first night curtain-calls. Mr. Mann grimaces, groans, amuses, noch einmal.