New Plays in Manhattan

Evensong (by Beverley Nichols & Edward Knoblock; Arch Selwyn & Sir Barry Jackson, producers). Glib, ultra-British young Beverley Nichols used to be employed on the personal staff of Dame Nellie Melba. He cashed in on this experience when he wrote Evensong, a novel about a declining diva's race against time. Dramatized and produced in London, the story had a remunerative run. Produced for the first time on a U. S. stage, Evensong again sets one to wondering if the English often go to the theatre just to get out of the rain.

Irela has refused to face the fact that she is about to sing her operatic swan-song. No longer can she reach her high notes without taking a second breath but the reappearance of an ancient lover reminds her of the departed days when the students of St. Petersburg unhitched her horses and dragged her carriage through the streets. It takes the competition of a Spanish singer and a paralytic stroke to bring home the crushing truth: that she must henceforth pass her days in "farewell tours" singing numbers like "Comin' Thro' The Rye." Creditable indeed is the impersonation which Edith Evans (last seen in The Lady with a Lamp) brings to the part of Irela, a character in which cruelty, vanity and tenderness fight for the upper hand. As Irela's niece, Miss Jane Wyatt performs capably. But Evensong remains the sort of wooden spectacle in which crowds of supers are led out on the stage to gape at the star, having nothing else to do.

Bad Manners (by Dana Burnet & William B. Jutte; William A. Brady Ltd., producer). "Sex is all right in its place," says the hero of this play, "but people talk about it too much." Had the authors heeded this warning, Bad Manners might have some claim to theatregoers attentions.

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