New Plays in Manhattan

Cue for Passion (by Edward Chodorov & H. S. Kraft, produced by Richard Aldrich & Richard Myers). Advance notices hinted that this play was about Sinclair Lewis and Dorothy Thompson. The hint can be disregarded. The drama begins as an acid study of the relations between a jaded, unsavory novelist (George Coulouris) and his wife, part journalist, part demon, played by sinister Gale Sondergaard, whose performances here and in the cinema (The Letter) mark her as the female viper of the dramatic year.

After Act I the psychological expose of these diseased characters turns into a pretty fair murder mystery. On the evening of his first try at playacting, the novelist is found shot in his hotel bed room. Suspected are a whole stageful of sophisticates, including the novelist's mistress, a South American general, a shy French playwright, brilliantly acted by Austrian Oscar Karlweis, and a fat, macabre play director, who threatens just before the body is found: "I'll club him to death with his own truss." Crime Club members may get to thinking about the denouement and decide they were robbed. Less sophisticated mystery lovers probably get their money's worth.

Retreat to Pleasure (by Irwin Shaw, produced by The Group Theatre) is an embarrassing attempt to mix farce, comedy and lofty social sentiments. A beautiful Ohio WPA administrator takes a vacation in Florida, where she is wooed by a valve manufacturer, a playboy and a fatuous young leftist--one of those self-righteous kibitzers who continually feels obliged to tell other people exactly what is wrong with them and with society. He wins the girl, only to spurn her in order to become a sort of wandering heart-of-the-world.

Presumably this annoying character enjoys Playwright Shaw's sympathy, but the audience's is more apt to go to Actress Edith Atwater, who, as the WPA's lady, is one of the most desirable objects of the New Deal.

The Old Foolishness (by Paul Vincent Carroll, produced by John Golden) is another misty Irish play, by the author of The White Steed and Shadow and Substance. Maeve McHugh is loved by three brothers--a farmer, a scholar, a Communist fighter. She finds herself unable to belong exclusively to any of them, but always wedded in part, if not in the flesh, to a mystical spirit. It is suggested that she represents Ireland itself. The author may have meant this or something else, but his drama is as vague and uncrystallized as the moonbeams that flood one of the scenes. Sally O'Neil, pretty, dark veteran of the silent cinema, is the girl unassisted by Playwright Carroll toward any clarity regarding her own or the Irish question.

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