New Plays in Manhattan

Serena Blandish. It is the conviction of stupid people that only that which is solemn may be profound and that to seem satirical is to be unsympathetic. Partly for this reason, Serena Blandish will doubtless be misappreciated and en joyed by the well-decorated people who will go to see it. Its inadequacy as a play, however, is not caused by a fallacy in attitude.

Yet its perfections are not marred but diminished, because a play must do more than suggest, however perfectly, a mood, and because an epigram in several scenes is certainly too long. An anonymous "Lady of Quality" wrote the novel Serena Blandish; or The Difficulty of Getting Married.

S. N. Behrman (The Second Man) wrote the play. Jed Harris, the ill-shaven producer whose perhaps somewhat mercenary pride recently forbade him to present Ina Claire in The Gaoler's Wench, was inclined to think well of Serena. He ordered Robert Edmond Jones to design some sets and procured Ruth Gordon with her soft, broken voice and her abruptly delicate gestures to play the part of a lady who "possessed every imaginable charm of appearance and behavior."

Serena Blandish was born near the docks of London. When she grew up, she was carried off by a Countess who wished her to make a brilliant marriage. This Serena was incompetent to do. She accepted a ring from a Jewish jeweler and she accepted a luncheon engagement with Lord Ivor Cream. The ring led to embarrassments and the luncheon engagement led, not to another engagement of a more permanent nature, but to tea. Martin, the Countess's butler, gloomily observed: "A lady who stays to tea where she has been invited to luncheon never gets engaged to be married." There came, finally, a proposal from the jeweler; also, an unimportant young man whom Serena would have loved even if he had not liked her a bit. He invited her to go unconventionally with him to Monte Carlo, to start a night club. In stead of becoming the consort of a Negro, as she was made to do in the book, Serena of the play runs downstairs on her way to a golden and most likely disastrous adventure, still happily, if perilously, unmarried.

Chauve-Souris, internationally applauded Russian "Bat Theatre," has this year gone stale, sterile, incredibly flat.

Seven years ago the smart and sprightly Russian Bat flapped over U. S. cities with tempestuous and most merited eclat. As each number was introduced by the droll, Cheshire-cat-faced Nikita Balieff, an ticipant audiences rocked with a foretaste of merriment which always followed. The music of the "Parade of the Wooden Soldiers" penetrated every stratum of U. S. society. Not to have seen the "Wooden Soldiers" or "Katinka" or later "Katerina" was the height of rusticity or indifference.

There were three reasons. Each act was clipped short, the curtain falling just before the audience had reached the climax of enjoyment. Second, the music was exuberant, explosive, punctuated by the hearty (not dainty) shrieks of pretty feminine performers. Lastly, there was a transcendent originality. Two years ago, even one year ago, this magic quality lingered on. Last week, however, it was seen to have finally evaporated, a fault all the more glaring because every number in the present program is new, in the sense of not having been shown before in the U. S.

Almost all the "new" acts are shoddy reach-me-downs from former successes. They are not clipped short before they begin to pall. The music is a damp package of the old fireworks. Several of the set tings, notably "The Celebrated Popoff's Porcelains," are direct steals from such past Bat Theatre triumphs as the "Dutch Platter Porcelains."

Finally, what was once the impish and diverting anti-U. S.-ism of M. Balieff has soured into an apparent U. S.-phobia. Two years ago in Paris, the attack could be seen coming on. Spleen and scorn for les Americains, who had been fools enough to make M. Balieff rich, were explicitly on his lips in Paris. Last week, in Manhattan, they lurked in his innuendo, deadened the jollity that once beamed from his round Cheshire-cat-face.

Hot Water. Lucille La Verne has been identified so long with an old hag in Sun-Up that it was hard to believe in her latest characterization, that of a decayed but kind-hearted actress named Duckie. This actress, once highly popular behind footlights, has become, through the re versals of circumstance, a janitress. But she continues doing many good turns every day, for which the recipients repay her badly.

It is her invention of "showersols," a practical device which no doubt will be patented by some one of the few spectators at Hot Water, which eventually brings her victory over janitorial and other diffi culties. ''Showersols" are collapsible umbrellas. A kind, rich friend of Duckie's takes to manufacturing them, thereby providing Duckie with wealth and a moral value for the play, which has little value of any other kind.

Merry Andrew. Druggists are notoriously busy and peculiar characters. So fantastic and interesting are their occupations, that, when they attempt to leave their tinted shelves, druggists find themselves drawn back, like outworn reporters, to the charms of their conversational counters. Investigating this novel theme, Lewis Beach (The Goose Hangs High) last week delivered to a giggling audience his history of the successive industry, retirement, and return, not to the grindstone but to the happy pharmacy of one Andrew Aiken, impersonated by plump Walter Connolly, placidly absurd but only mildly funny.

Zeppelin. Because it strives for nothing but a thrilling effect, this piece, which otherwise would be unworthy of production, achieves its aim and will entertain persons who look to the Crime Club for cerebral diversion. All the action takes place aboard a dirigible, now in a com panionway, now in the observation gondola. There is a professor, a formula for synthetic leprosy, a threat against all nations, an international spy, an adventuress, a leper, etc. etc. The wreck is ably done.

Judas. That Basil Rathbone is an able actor there is no doubt, but his part in writing this ineffectual piece should dictate to him the confines of his metier. He is not a playwright. Obvious, intermediate lines try without success to sketch Iscariot as a better man, really, than Bible History makes him. He who is hard of hearing would enjoy the personable cast, the good settings by Jo Mielziner, but the hard of hearing go to the cinema.

The Subway. Six years ago able Playwright Elmer Rice (The Adding Machine, Street Scene) tried to peddle this play. Twice it went as far as the casting process. Never, until last week, was it produced, except for a brief presentation at the Cam bridge Festival Theatre in England. Many a worse play has been produced, but this is not another Street Scene, save in method. It is a cameractual dissertation on life in the metropolis. Sophie Smith (Jane Hamilton) doesn't mean to be bad, but she permits herself to be seduced by an artist. When she finds she is in his way, she leaves him, committing suicide by jumping in front of a subway train. It is only an honest play, not a good one.

Deep Harlem. This blackamoor musical comedy suggests in episodes the history of the black race from Cushites to Harlemites. In the syncopated moments of that history there is such brazen, delicious gusto as whites never attain. The humor is racially familiar and pleasing. One disconsolate Negro moans: "I'm the blackest ball on the table." But the company is too naive; needs a tonic of finesse to turn its dusky vigor into fine artistry.