New Play in Manhattan

The Rat Race (by Garson Kanin; produced by Leland Hayward) is one more thrust at the hard, cold sidewalks of New York. With a colorful set representing "a piece of Manhattan," and a friendly loafer and shrewish landlady providing an antiphonal chorus, the author of Born Yesterday has portrayed a squalid world of heels and down-at-heels, of furnished rooms and finished lives. The central story, which sounds the most comforting note, begins as Boy-Meets-Girl in Act I, ends as Boy-Mates-Girl in Act III.

The boy (well acted by Barry Nelson) is a saxophone player from the sticks, an easy mark who is fleeced of almost everything but his hopes; the girl (Betty Field) is a dime-a-dancer with a past (which she is living in). Playwright Kanin's slickest trick is to portray their and their neighbors' troubles in the form of little variety turns--a band that plays jazz before swiping the boy's instruments, a vaudeville has-been who bounces into his act, and a landlady with a monologue.

The Rat Race begins entertainingly and remains vivid in spots. It gains from a sound production and, in particular, from Actress Field's winning performance. But even what is good about the play usually sets off memories of something better. If The Rat Race is a black mark against the callousness of Manhattan, it seems equally one against the opportunism of Broadway.

It is not just that Playwright Kanin sets theater above drama, but that he displays an almost equal lack of respect for his sordid material and his own talent. The one concern with squalor is to make it picturesque at all costs; with vulgarity, to exploit it for laughs. In the end The Rat Race gets nowhere; worse, it gets dull, repeating a lot of facile tricks and typifying a theater where, more & more, clever playwrights write everything but plays.

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