Broadway's Best

The top U.S. theatrical reference book is the Best Plays series, begun in 1919 by the late Burns Mantle. Available this week: The Best Plays of 7955-7954 (Dodd, Mead; $5) edited--for the second season--by TIME'S drama critic, Louis Kronenberger. Since last season was memorable for many competent rather than outstanding plays, Kronenberger concedes that the ten best he selected were not markedly better than the next ten. He finally gave the accolade to four hit plays: The Caine Mutiny Court Martial, Tea and Sympathy, The Teahouse of the August Moon, The Confidential Clerk; and to six financial failures: The Golden Apple, Take a Giant Step, The Immoralist, The Girl on the Via Flaminia, In the Summer House, The Magic and the Loss.

The book is again enlivened with Hirschfeld's witty caricatures (from the New York Times), and action photographs (from the files of LIFE) replace the usual static poses of publicity stills. Kronenberger notes that two of his ten best (Golden Apple and Via Flaminia) originated off-Broadway. Perhaps, he says, "the prime significance of '53-'54 will be that Broadway, just then, began to be saved (or could it have been doomed?) by off-Broadway's contributions."

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