New Plays in Manhattan

Little Ol' Boy (by Albert Bein; Henry Hammond Inc., producer). Considerable fanfare prefaced the appearance of Little Ol' Boy. No less than six reputable producers announced it for production in the past two years. The success of the playwright's The Heavenly Express, presented by a suburban repertory theatre last summer, added to the general bally- hoo. At one point James Cagney was said to have planned to retire temporarily from the films and take a part in Little Ol' Boy. For once, preliminary enthusiasm is justified. Little Ol' Boy has all the earmarks of a theatrical tenstrike.

The play opens in cheerless Cottage D of a midwestern reform school. Onto this scene is led a collection of small, wary ruffians: Little Deadman ("He won't let nobody touch him"); pudgy Pieface; Horsethief, whose malady is obscure and horrid. Poison mean is Roy Wells (John Drew Colt), ringleader of the potato-peeling "Centipede's Club." Robert Locket (Edwin Philips) is the most sensitive young prisoner, a fact which early bodes him ill. In him Mrs. Sanger, wife of the weak cottage supervisor, takes a strange and unnatural interest.

Things begin to hum when a new boy arrives, tough Red Barry (Burgess Meredith). Red tried to slip a gun to his brother, waiting to be electrocuted in the State's death house. Actor Meredith, until recently the Dormouse and Tweedledee in

Alice in Wonderland, superbly sublimates the quality of plain orneriness. He puts more sheer malice in "For God's sake!'' than most actors could express with a snake-whip. The "Centipede's Club" has tried to smuggle a letter out to the Governor. And although Robert Locket has taken the blame, the warden has ordered all to be flogged over the Iron Horse. Groaning, whimpering from their beating, the boys unreasonably accuse Locket of being a stool pigeon. Defending him, Red arranges a light between Locket and Ringleader Wells behind the blacksmith shop. A guard intervenes. Locket hysterically brains him with an ax. There is a general jailbreak. Red and Locket hide in a nearby barn. A queer element of Tom Sawyerism develops as the youthful criminals plan to make a raft. "We could float all the way down the Mississippi," says Locket. "Hell," says Red. "We could float all the way to California!" But they float nowhere. Frightened farm boys shoot Locket. Red is brought back to the institution, prepared for transfer to the penitentiary. "Did Robert have a good word for me before he died?" asks plaintive Mrs. Sanger. "Naw!" says Red. "He died hatin' everybody like a man with any guts should." He hesitates, just before being taken away. "He did have a good word to say for you," hard-boiled Red finally admits. Albert Bein, author of this vital, brilliantly cast play, is no stranger to reform schools. He spent five years in one, lost a leg trying to escape. Poems which he wrote while imprisoned were praised by Clarence Darrow, Zona Gale. Russian-born, he is now 29. In 1930 he wrote a book called Love In Chicago under the pseudonym of Charles Walt, combined Christian names of his favorite authors--Dickens and Whitman. Author Bein's anonymity was assumed to save his brother, a Chicago architect, embarrassment. In 1930 he also wrote Youth In Hell, another reform school story. The Group Theatre is now considering his The House of Kuvalsky.

Man Bites Dog (by Don Lochbiler & Arthur Barton; Theron Bamberger, pro- ducer) is an inferior newspaper play in which the editor of The Daily Tab, disappointed when a woman bungles the job of shooting her racketeering husband in his city room, is pleased when her second attempt is successful. There is very little of the thunder of the Hoe press, even a theatrical Hoe press, about Man Bites Dog. Able Leo Donnelly, as the managing editor, finds himself in bad dramatic company.

Nine Pine Street (by John Colton, Donald Blackwell, Carleton & William Miles; Margaret Hewes, producer). The case of Lizzie Borden, who is popularly supposed to have murdered her father and stepmother in Fall River two generations ago, has produced a body of New England legend and at least one folk ballad. It has taken four playwrights to stage the tale, and what they have done is not important. What is important is the amazing transfiguration of Lillian Gish as an actress.

In the midst of a number of characters and characterizations which are about as lifelike as Victorian porcelain under glass, hitherto frail Miss Gish stands out full-blooded and alive. Gone is her pastel shy- ness, gone are her girlish gasps as she takes the part of the murderess who gave up a pallid suitor to stalk Electra-like after her vicious father and his paramour through the gloom of their New England parlor, killing one with a walking stick, another with a flat iron. Actress Gish still has a strong hold on her part in the otherwise flabby final scene when, a misty old lady self-imprisoned at the scene of her crime, she still clings to her innocence when interviewed by a reporter. Nine Pine Street makes one wait a long time between dramatic drinks, but Lillian Gish (1933 style) and Robert Edmoncl Jones's excellent period set are well worth seeing.

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