New Plays in Manhattan

South Pacific (by Howard Rigsby & Dorothy Heyward; produced by David Lowe) is not a good play, but it has the fairly rare Broadway desire to by-pass trash for truth. It tells of a torpedoed Negro seaman (Canada Lee) who lands on a Jap-held South Pacific island. Having been pushed around for years in the U.S., Sam is cynical and rancorous, indifferent to who wins the war, delighted that, because of his dark skin, he can pose as a native. He finds a pretty Negro missionary girl and becomes a contented lotus-eater.

When others seize a chance to go after the Japs, Sam refuses to budge. Afterwards he feels ashamed; when the Japs murder his favorite native boy, he feels incensed. And at length, out of angry emotions, comes a confused comprehension that no man can stand aside, because no man stands alone.

However familiar a type, the ill-used roughneck will remain a disquieting figure until society remolds him, a challenging subject until literature really plumbs his depths. South Pacific deserves respect for taking an unblinking look at Sam, gains in interest by portraying him in the teeth of war. But it produces only a plausible symbol, not a flesh-&-blood human being. Sam is made too articulate about what ails him and not convincing enough about why he alters. Nor does the play, which distrusts the shock tactics of melodrama, possess the skill to be vivid for long without it.

Doctors Disagree (by Rose Franken; produced by William Brown Meloney) is a piece of pill-coated sugar. Glibly combining heart interest with brain operations, Playwright Franken (Claudia, Outrageous Fortune) keeps an assortment of problems churning. Sore beset is Miss Franken's doctor heroine (Barbara O'Neill) whose neurologist beau (Philip Ober) doubts whether a woman can qualify as a good surgeon. No sooner is he proved wrong than he starts doubting whether a good surgeon can qualify as a woman. The poor girl, meanwhile, is in an awful pickle about disregarding professional ethics in order to save a little boy's life.

By curtain time, however, the child is out of danger, his estranged parents are reunited, and the doctors (heroine and neurologist) have agreed that love and a career are compatible.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.