New Plays in Manhattan

Hot-cha! Producer Florenz Ziegfeld is a reactionary at heart. In the face of a musicomedy renaissance, he has produced another melodious fable following a formula that has served for 25 years or more. The formula requires a lavish setting (anywhere outside the U. S.), one juvenile lead, one misunderstood ingenue, one comedian with straight man, a temptress, a torch singer (added since the War), a villain, and the more chorus girls the better.

In the case of Hot-cha! the setting is contemporary Mexico. The juvenile is Charles ("Buddy") Rogers of Olathe, Kan., who plays indifferently on several musical instruments and was until lately his country's cinematic Boy Friend. The ingenue is a tall blond named June Knight. Bert Lahr, whose large following is convulsed by his funny faces and mispronunciations, is the comedian and Lynne Overman (Dancing Partners) is more or less his foil. The siren is a dark mite with a great big smile, Cinemactress Lupe Velez. Her shapely shoulders are burdened with that part of the show which Mr. Lahr does not carry. Last week she inspired Hearst Colyumist Arthur Brisbane, whose employer owns the Ziegfeld Theatre, to strike off a memorable simile. Wrote Mr. Brisbane: "Thirty 'glorified' girls that stand behind her and also wriggle are compared to Lupe Velez like 30 plates of ice cream standing behind a red hot coal."

Continually harassed by Prohibition agents in their Manhattan Night Club, the company decides to carry on henceforth on the safe side of the Rio Grande. There Mr. Overman offers to make Mr. Lahr a bull fighter, working him up to a great pitch of excitement by pointing out that all the women will want to make love to him. As to the dangers, Mr. Lahr has to admit that in his anxiety he had been "making a mountain out of a Dunhill." His courage rises even higher when Mr. Overman drags out a small, moony-eyed calf which he says will be Bullfighter Lahr's first victim. It is while the apish comedian is stamping around making chests and defiantly crying: "I'm a machador, I'm a machador!" that his real opponent, a large fat steer, cautiously muzzles up to him.

The music, by Lew Brown and Ray Henderson, is not particularly tuneful, but Mr. Lahr may be correct when he sings: "I Make up for That in Other Ways."

Night Over Taos. Playwright Maxwell Anderson merits the respectful attention with which his works are received, largely because of his polished, academic technique. Night Over Taos (pronounced Tah-oce) is no less polished than his Elizabeth the Queen, but unlike his Theatre Guild success of last season it lacks vehemence. It is a play of ideas rather than activity.

The idea behind Night Over Taos is that the course of youth and growth should not be checked by age and tradition. The scene is the Taos of 1847, last stand of Castilian feudality before the rising tide of Northern conquest. Old Pablo Montoya (J. Edward Bromberg) has resolved to resist the Gringo invasion to the last ditch, to protect his lands and the imperious institutions in which he believes. As a result of his convictions, he kills one son for treating with the enemy, almost kills another who is in love with the girl whom Pablo has decided to take for his third wife. He finally realizes his mistakes before poisoning himself.

The Warrior's Husband is a full-bosomed travesty on one period in the Age of Fable. The curtain rises on the terrace of Hippolyta's Palace in Pontus, capital of the Land of the Amazons. The terrace squirms with the full-fleshed legs of ladies of the Amazon army. It appears that one of the questions-of-the-day is equal suffrage. The males want a vote. One of these disenfranchised parties is Romney Brent (Third Little Show). With an inoffensive bashfulness he manages to marry Hippolyta, and as the Queen dons her armor for conflict with the besieging Greeks he is heard bashfully to remark: "I never thought I'd be a wargroom!"

What manner of men these strange Greeks be is soon discovered by the Amazons when Theseus (Colin Keith-Johnston) runs away with Antiope (a blonde thin-cheeked girl named Katharine Hepburn). Theseus also manages to abduct, with Antiope, the Girdle, symbol of feminine supremacy. A sort of home-made and reverse Lysistrata, The Warrior's Husband terminates in a more discreet revel than the authentic Greek revel provided.

Praise goes to wet-lipped Romney Brent for an effeminate impersonation which is notable in that it amuses and does not repel. Praise, too, for Miss Hepburn as the volatile but vulnerable warrior and for Mr. Johnston is indicated. Homer, who was reported as a war correspondent in the affray, may have nodded over the activities of The Warrior's Husband. The audience should not.

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