New Play in Manhattan

The Breadwinner relates the story of two English families, next door neighbors: the Battles and the Grangers. The two wives have nothing to worry their silly heads about. The four children talk a good deal about how "shy-making" are their parents' stodginess and lack of imagination. Charles Battle (A. E. Matthews) is a stockbroker in The City. Alfred Granger, a barrister, is a hearty, roast-beef-of-Old-England sort of fellow.

Act I discovers the young Battles and Grangers lamenting their families' dullness, proposing that people over 40 be painlessly put to death as useless and incompetent. A little later Father Granger arrives with the news that Father Battle has been victimized by a friend, is about to be "hammered" (lose his membership in the Exchange), has not been at his office all day. In the midst of the consternation which this arouses, Father Battle smilingly appears.

Act II finds Actor Matthews at his best. Quietly he underplays rich lines (a practice known theatrically as "throwing 'em away"), discloses that he has received offers of help but prefers to let his firm go bankrupt, announces that he is going away because his life, his wife, his children and all young people "bore him a bit." "No, I'm mistaken," he corrects himself. "Infinitely!"

So far, The Breadwinner is fairly civilized drawing room farce. But from this point on it develops third-act trouble. Father Battle's wife pleads with him. Mrs. Granger pretends she is in love with him, begs him to stay. Little Diana Granger wants to go away with him and be his mistress. At the final curtain, Father Battle just picks up his hat and walks off, as promised some 45 min. previously.

Playwright of The Breadwinner is William Somerset Maugham (Rain, The Letter, The Circle). Unlike the best of his works, this comedy is simply a bag of parlor tricks performed by dialog.

Acting bolsters The Breadwinner immeasurably, notably the acting of gentle, toothy Mr. Matthews, who somehow suggests the kind old water rat in The Wind in the Willows. When a young man, Mr. Matthews clerked in a London bookstore. One day he learned that at his very desk once toiled the great tragedian Sir Henry Irving. Bookseller Matthews promptly changed his vocation, got a job as call boy at the Princess Theatre. At that show-shop he was given his first part, later appearing with Ellen Terry, Sir Gerald du Maurier and other notables in the British theatre's heyday. He first went to the U. S. to act Love Among The Lions, in 1910. Since then he has lent his amiable presence to Peg O' My Heart, Bull-Dog Drummond, The Last of Mrs. Cheyney, The First Mrs. Fraser.

Messmore Kendall, middle-aged lawyer, real estate tycoon and producer who owns a home at Dobbs Ferry, N. Y. and a party apartment over the Capitol Theatre, presented The Breadwinner. The show was chosen as Play-of-the-Month by Play-choice, Inc.

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