New Plays in Manhattan

Medicine Show (by Oscar Saul & H. R. Hays; produced by Carly Wharton & Martin Gabel) is a Living Newspaper-type play about U. S. health. Though less vividly dramatized than . . . one third of a nation or Power, it trenchantly exposes the medical plight of the U. S. poor. Its relentless statistician raps out some pretty disquieting facts: that of 1,400,000 annual deaths, 250,000 are preventable; that Chicago has just one free hospital; that 1 ,600 U. S. counties lack hospital facilities; that at Manhattan's Harlem Hospital four ambulances annually served 250,000 patients.

On the doctors' end, Medicine Show reveals the back-breaking efforts of young medicos to make a living. Out of the plaints of impoverished sufferers and the plight of struggling practitioners, it frames a plea for socialized medicine, an outspoken indictment of the American Medical Association for barring the way.

When Medicine Show states plain facts, it packs a real wallop. When it invents "dramatic situations," it is less convincing, and a great deal less dramatic.

Suspect (by Edward Percy & Reginald Denham; produced by Douglas MacLean & Arthur J. Beckhard). Three weeks ago Playwrights Percy & Denham scored a neat success on Broadway with their horror play, Ladies in Retirement. Not only is Suspect a much weaker play, but its good points are all hand-me-downs from Ladies in Retirement.

The play concerns a Scotswoman (Pauline Lord) who, some 20 years before the play begins, was accused of some Lizzie-Bordenish ax murders and let off with the ignominious Scottish verdict Not Proven. She changes her name and lives down her past, but when her son becomes engaged, his fiancee's godfather spots the mother. In his efforts to trap her, and hers not to be trapped, the play becomes fairly dramatic. But a play should become fairly dramatic before 10:15 p. m.

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