New Musical in Manhattan

The Two Bouquets (by Eleanor & Herbert Farjeon; produced by Marc Connelly in association with Bela Blau) is a mannerly, mock-genteel operetta of Victorian days which delighted Londoners for almost nine months, will not delight the U. S. so long. It does a fairly good job of trying to eat its cake and have it too: makes gay, simpering fun of itself while it strives after a light-as-thistledown charm. a snows-of-yesteryear nostalgia. Its lyrics are mock and merry-andrew, its tunes (out of such Victorian composers as Offenbach, Balfe and Gounod) softly glide and sway, recalling gaslit ballrooms, old-fashioned gardens with gazebos.

Silly is its plot, silly the Victorian primness that made the plot possible. Briefly, two young ladies get each other's dance bouquets by mistake, thereupon pine and languish in silence (except for eight or ten solos and duets) along with the tongue-tied swains who sent them. Although first-nighters felt now & then that they were being sprayed with charm as though from an atomizer, much of the time The Two Bouquets saved itself by being smartly paced, lightly keyed, freshly mounted.

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