New Plays in Manhattan

The Guinea Pig. Preston Sturges wrote this play, and wisely paid for its production himself, instead of waiting for some lethargic producer to make a mess out of it. It opened without fanfare but to unanimous approval for its quiet and amusing story--that of a girl who, for the sake of getting things to write about, got herself a lover, and of the lover who regarded his good fortune as a grand passion. Alexander Carr, onetime half of "Potash and Perlmutter," gargled glib dialect as a Hebrew theatrical producer who instigated and later encouraged the literary liaison. Mary Carroll was the girl.

Precious. Complete and unassumed inanity is often the means whereby pretty women entice money out of old and stupid men. On this despondent theme, James Forbes (The Famous Mrs. Fair, The Show Shop) constructed this sometimes witty but usually laggard little farce, which was mistakenly provided by Rosalie Stewart, perhaps the most astute among Manhattan's female producers. "Precious" is the name of a girl, in some respects resembling the popular conception of Peaches Browning, who marries and mines a rich elderly man. At length, he grows tired of being the goat and palms "Precious" off on a young architect.

House Unguarded. Two bibulous journalists in Panama are discussing the murder of the colonel. One third of the play is devoted to the enacting of one newspaper man's theory of the murder. One third is the other's theory, and the third act is the actual revelation of the slaying as exposed by a principal to the deed.

Lester Lonergan as the colonel gives a good performance. He is co-author of the play. The rest of the cast is not distinguished.

Gypsy. When Ellen (Claiborne Foster) was ten years old, she and her mother visited relations. The relations' quarters were cramped; mother and daughter had to sleep together. Another house guest was a man, about whom was a distinctive odor--surely not the odor of sanctity, for the Child Ellen awoke one night to find the bedroom permeated with the smell of the man. This was Ellen's first experience in marital infidelity. In later years her experiences were not so vicarious.

She is married to an impecunious musician, who forgives her for one lapse. She takes on a struggling scrivener, her second affair, and leaves her husband when that entity softly reminds her that after all, he is her husband, and won't she have dinner with him? For four months she lives with the scrivener, despite the plea of her now thrice-wed mother, who begs Ellen not to tramp the path of dalliance. Ellen is on the verge of another affair just as she learns that her mother, running off from Husband III, has killed herself. On hearing the news Ellen screams, "Isn't she priceless?" But the effect is so profound that Ellen tightly closes windows and doors and the curtain falls to the sibilant sound of escaping gas, hissing Ellen into Kingdom Come.

The piece, written by Maxwell (What Price Glory--collaborator) Anderson, has a good first act, a second act that gets by, and a third that is impotent.

Ned Wayburn's Gambols. The more pretentious of the musical-show producers--George White, Earl Carroll and "Ziggy"--have grown corpulent in their racket. They cannot any longer live on nickels and dimes, so they put such prices as $5.50 on the seats in their hippodromes and entertain fat admirers who are as rich and extravagant as themselves. Not so Ned Wayburn. He, the dancing master of Broadway and of college musical shows, exhibited last week a modest but attractive series of routines and skits enhanced with a low price and with the aura of that upholstered past when petticoats were among the facts of life.

Libby Holman, lately of the brief and splendid Rainbow, encouraged and improved several chapters of these gambols. "Mothers o' Men" was the regrettable title of one of the songs given her to sing, but she acted well and scowled, not growled, in excellent fashion while performing a chant called "Salt of My Tears." Also a young Shirley Richards was to be seen, making the stage her stamping ground. As was to be expected, the reels and bergamasks in the Gambols were as good as Broadway dancing gets.

Cafe de Danse. Frightfully ham is this piece about a kitchen wench (Trini) who wants to become a great dancer, and does. It is produced by Ben Bernie and Phil Baker, which goes to show that Ben Bernie is still the most intelligent dance-orchestra leader and Phil Baker is funny on the variety stage.