New Play in Newark

Two years ago bootleggers were the theatrical mode; in the season now approaching its gloomiest hour, actors have been studied in their native haunts. Next season newshawks will be dragged whining from their typewriters and flung upon the stage. One scheduled play about newspaper folk is Gentlemen of the Press by Ward Morehouse, who writes dramatic notes for the New York Evening Sun. In this a genuine columnist, Russel Crouse of the New York Evening Post, will try acting. Another is The Front Page, by Ben Hecht and Chas. McArthur, sponsored by Jed Harris, which received a tryout in Newark last week.

A sardonic farce, its scene is a room in the Chicago Criminal Courts Building, where eight reporters are engaged in covering a murder trial. They have almost succeeded in persuading the sheriff to stage the execution ahead of schedule, in time for the early editions, when the murderer, a meek little fellow, shoots his way out of jail. Hildy Johnson, the most agile of the newsgatherers, captures him by good luck and attempts to conceal him in a rolltop desk until he has had time to scoop the story.

Mainly, The Front Page depends upon atmosphere for its effect: the presence of lazy, autocratic, hard-boiled newspaper men, their brisk telephone talk with editors, the gay, courageous casual crockery with which newsmongers ply their often disreputable trade. Funny, quick, exciting, and, despite its exaggerations, highly informative, The Front Page seemed full of good reporting. Hildy Johnson was Lee Tracy, out of Broadway; the women's parts were few and not imposing; Phyllis Povah cleverly impersonated a chewy little tart.