New Plays in Manhattan

The Curious Savage (by John Patrick; produced by the Theatre Guild & Russell Lewis & Howard Young) tackles a tempting and dangerous theme. The scene is an elegant mental institution, the story chiefly about an eccentric rich widow (amusingly played by Lillian Gish) whose stepchildren want to keep her from disposing capriciously of their father's fortune. Before being confined, she has contrived to hide the money; and the play proceeds at several interrogatory levels: 1) a farcical one of Where Is the Fortune?; 2) a psychological one of How Mad Is the Lady?; 3) a philosophical one of Is Sanity So Wonderful?

Throughout all this, the play faces other problems. There is the matter of having fun with mad people without proving offensive, which it handles on the whole fairly well; there is also the matter of keeping wacky humor from becoming mechanical, which much more often than not, it fails at.

Some of Playwright Patrick's individual remarks are original and funny; several of his scenes are brisk and entertaining. But the play as a whole suffers badly from a frantic mixture of styles (all the way from George Abbott to Barrie) and from a sameness of subject matter. The "guests" at the Cloisters can only trot out their obsessions; the old lady can only defy and deceive her stepchildren. And the staging, which might have given the play a nice airy unreality, makes most of it noisily blunt.

The Day After Tomorrow (by Frederick Lonsdale; produced by Lee & J. J. Shubert) is the first light comedy in seven years by the author of Aren't We All?, Spring Cleaning and The Last of Mrs. Cheyney. Lonsdale still favors the drawing room, in this case a ducal one. But in this case the Duke of Bristol and all his clan are stony broke, and--except for industrious Gerard--indolent, incompetent and alcoholic. A young American heiress to $10 million (Beatrice Pearson) wanders in off the road with pneumonia, falls madly in love with Gerard (Ralph Michael), and he with her. But Gerard won't marry money and Mary can't live without it. There must be many a confab, many a set-to, many a farewell--and at length even a seduction--before the two are made one.

As straight drawing-room comedy, The Day After Tomorrow is anemic but agreeable. In its British way it manages to seem rather distinguished even when it is out at elbows. It has a nice languid urbanity, a pleasant suggestion of wit; and Melville Cooper is the suavest of performers playing the worldliest of peers. What does serious harm to the play is not its tenuous gaiety but its interminable romance. This not only makes for labored playwriting, but is never really in the true Lonsdale manner. Never was such real insouciance elbowed by such phony scruples; and never, for that matter, was so much fuss made over a mere $10 million.

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