New Plays in Manhattan

White Lilacs. With appropriate adaptations of waltz and mazurka, the Shubert Brothers offered this glib and pleasant operetta based upon the life of famed Composer Frederic Franc,ois Chopin. It stresses the episodes in which the composer was seen about with George Sand, meeting her at the home of the Countess d' Agoult and playing or grieving with her at Majorca.

The Operetta is the most romantic species of the art of the stage. Hence in White Lilacs there is not much effort to trace too accurately the mazy path of history. Nor is wit important to the operetta, and White Lilacs puts business before pun. Guy Robertson (as Chopin), De Wolf Hopper, Odette Myrtil supply these; the legitimate copies of the composer's original tunes especially help produce in White Lilacs an engaging show.

The High Road. Had Author Frederick Lonsdale chosen to write a true and biting comedy instead of an exceptionally witty tragedy he might have made The High Road an even more exciting reiteration of an old theme than he did. His story is that of an actress loved by an heir; like the tortoise in the fable, the actress is the winner.

That such would be the outcome could be surmised as soon as the older members of the heir's family straggled elegantly into a very British drawing-room, each one mouthing some prejudicial reason why no actress should be allowed to scuttle out of the stage door and under the portcullis. When the actress, name of Elsie Hilary, appeared suddenly and without warning in front of this kangaroo tribunal, she had only one defender beside her betrothed scion. This was the Duke of Warrington who, immediately sensing that the actress had every intention of breaking her engagement without encouragement from Lady Minster, Lady Trench, Lord Trench, Sir Reginald Whelby, Lord Crayle or the family butler, urged that she be invited to visit in the gloomy castle until boredom drove her away from it.

Of course, Elsie Hilary, instead of allowing all the lords and ladies to arouse her ennui or resentment, aroused in them a great liking for her. She stirred the Duke of Warrington to a feeling more ardent than approval; and since she loved the Duke, she ended the agreement with her first lord. But the Duke of Warrington had an old flame whose husband died at just this inopportune moment. Elsie Hilary therefore compelled him to go to her rival rather than come to her in dishonor. Having so neatly forced an opportunity to show how Elsie Hilary had been trapped by the absurd codes and customs of the class in which she had been unwanted, Author Lonsdale showed instead, and very prettily, that the actress was the finest gentleman of them all.

English wit on the Manhattan stage consists largely of crossing the slang out of comic strips and reading them in a British accent. But comic strips can be and are often funny; the best comedy in The High Road is out of "Bringing Up Father." Lord Trench (Frederick Kerr) is Dinty Moore to his wife (Hilda Spong) who refers to him as "you horrible old man;" between the two there is an alternating current of abuse. Edna Best who plays Elsie Hilary is superior to Ina Claire in that she can deliver an epigram without tying her lips into a cupid's-bow knot; in some other respects she is her equal. The High Road is flawlessly cast and flawlessly acted.

Trapped. This melodrama is full of grisly cliches. Most of the excitement remains on the sfage side of the proscenium.

Luckee Girl. Having borrowed their title from a well-known article of feminine apparel and the refrain of their best song ("Come On Let's Make Whoopee") from the works of a well-known drama critic (Walter Winchell, who, on the ground of an antique enmity, was denied entrance to the premiere), the Brothers Shubert were content to borrow the rest of their second musical production of the week from a thousand previous productions of the same kind. The lucky girl is a midinette who, after an innocent cohabitation with the hero in the environs of Montparnasse, almost loses him to a sweet and tough country girl whom his father wishes him to marry. This difficulty is soon adjusted, with the aid of a huge funny waiter, played by Billy House. Billy House moved about the stage like a grinning Guava jelly, singing "Whoopee" with suave insinuations. The girls in the chorus, though they danced well, looked, with one, or possibly two, exceptions, as if they had been chosen from the occupants of an East Side subway car before the rush hour. The Lief lyrics, though not Gilbertian, were cheerful; the music of Maurice Yvain was pleasantly plentiful.

Night Hostess. It was said of Philip Dunning, playsmith of Night Hostess, that he was a losing principal in one of the numerous fistal engagements which took place last winter during the speakeasy season. Whether or not that is true, Play-smith Dunning knows rackets, racketeers; specifically, he knows Broadway and Broadwayfarers, most of whom are in one racket or another. Not one of their characters has he gone wide of in portrayal.

Playsmith Dunning has done the sleazy male racketeer with no abandoned strokes because for scornful presentation it is necessary only to be cameractual, phonographic. The rest of the characters look, smirk and jabber as if they belonged. The story is that of Buddy Miles, an apparently pure in body -if not in spirit -miss who is prize sucker-bait at "an exclusive gambling casino." First to be hooked is Chris Miller, part-owner of the gambling-purgatory. Buddy Miles is not aware that her best friend, Julia, estranged wife of a detective, was Miller's mistress, so when Julia jealously threatened to blab to Buddy and thereby spoil Miller's impending amour, Miller strangles his ex-mistress. Although the piece is called Night Hostess the principal role is that of Chris Miller, energetically, realistically done by Averell Harris.

In the role of Buddy Miles, Ruth Lyons is pleasantly, innocuously voluptuous. This is one of the better plays.

The Great Power. This dreadful piece contains all ordinary and extraordinary horrors of uninspired writing for the stage.