The Best Plays

These are the plays which, in the light of metropolitan criticism, seem most important:

Drama

OUTWARD BOUND--An incisive and haunting study, admirably put on, of the Leviathan of Death making an-other trial trip to the hereafter with a passenger list of sinners, with only their sins for baggage.

THE MIRACLE--Splendid medieval mummery in a nunnery.

TARNISH--Middle class morality, with its eyes made to smart by the tinsel of Broadway.

IN THE NEXT ROOM--A suave demonstration that murder can be committed in a very well-bred manner.

SAINT JOAN--Bernard Shaw and the Theatre Guild mordantly prove that Humanity loves its leaders only when they become legends.

THE OUTSIDER--Sometimes theatrical, but vitally acted. A satisfactory picture of the quack who made the doctors quake.

SuN-LJp--The poor whites of the Southern mountains prove rich in drama.

RAIN--A highly sexed and angry torrent against South Sea missionaries. Jeanne Eagels guides the flood with notable distinction.

Comedy

BEGGAR ON HORSEBACK -- Brilliant satire of those Babbitts who would turn even a musical genius into a Robot.

FATA MORGANA--Slightly risque and enchantingly cynical study of love's young dream manhandled by a sophisticated woman.

HELL-BENT FER HEAVEN -- Bright realism applied to a Southern evangelist who tries to shuffle his way into heaven with the methods of the cinema villain.

THE SONG AND DANCE MAN--George M. Cohan shows how well he knows George M. Cohan.

THE SHOW-OFF--One of the very best etchings of the genus fourflusher, hoisted with his own boosting.

THE SWAN--A royal family is put gracefully over the jumps of a tabooed love match.

MEET THE WIFE--An engaging domestic farce with two husbands trying to find out who's boss around here.

CYRANO DE BERGERAC--The luscious taffy of poetic romance, with Walter Hampden giving a matchless perform-ance of the marshmallow school.

THE GOOSE HANGS HIGH--The wild oats of the younger generation benignly turned into good fruit.

Musical

Musical comedy epicures can sample the following: Kid Boots, Poppy, Mary Jane McKane, Music Box Revue, Ziegfeld Follies, Runnin' Wild, Wildflower, Stepping Stones.