New Plays

Artists and Models. When the first revue under this trade mark appeared last year (TIME, Sept. 3, 1923), there were loud legal wranglings as to just how much of a chorus girl's costume a producer can legally eliminate. Disputes also arose as to the exact relations of wickedness and wit and to what degree the former is admissible. Accordingly, this year's edition was subject to stampede on the opening night. Those who wormed their way in (at $11 a ticket) found that the proceedings were neither as nude nor as ribald as those of the parent production. The players, the music and the comedy were better.

Trini, from Spain, is the temptress-in-chief. Barnett Parker, clown of countless Shubert productions, assists the considerable supply of comedy with his London drawl. There were the usual dancers, chorus, color and a diverting score. Taken in sum, it is one of the better, but not one of the best, examples of the species,

George S. Kaufman--"The high spots are quite high . . . and the low spots are pretty low."

In His Arms. Margaret Lawrence is an amazingly attractive person, possibly a trine plump to be playing a nervous bride but, nevertheless, most agreeable. For her sake, her extensive clientele will enjoy In His Arms. For the rest, it will be simply a comedy that edges comfortably above the average.

Elsie Clarendon (Miss Lawrence) is engaged to a startlingly stern, spectacled young artist (Geoffrey Kerr). Just the week before her wedding, there appears a handsome and extremely affable young gentleman from Holland (Vernon Steele). She cuts dates with her fiance to motor with this new arrival and then directs the new arrival to disappear. Fifteen minutes before the wedding, he can contain himself no longer and returns. The bridegroom, reasonably and yet quite unreasonably irritated, makes a scene. The bride hurls her wedding bouquet on the floor, swears at him with authentic modern fervor and falls into the Dutchman's arms.

In the competent supporting cast, the saturnine Edna May Oliver squeezes the maximum of merriment out of a shrewd supply of neatly satiric lines.

Alexander Woollcott--"The twinkling lady, Margaret Lawrence, is most of the refreshment offered in the rather foolish, but amusing,comedy."

The Guardsman. As the curtain went down on the opening performance, great sighs of critical relief were heard. The shuffling parade of poor (with one notable exception--What Price Glory?) productions which has been passing in review this autumn had been halted a second time.

Molnar of Hungary is the author, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne the principals, the Theatre Guild the producers. The play is in a sense a revival. It was presented eleven years ago, under the name of Where Ignorance is Bliss, with William Courtleigh and Rita Jolivet. Pervading ineptitude brought rapid ruin.

As most of the world knows, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne are actor and actress, man and wife. When, in the opening scene, the characters were drawn as actor and actress, man and wife, the spectators nodded to each other that here was a favoring fitness. They continued to nod throughout the evening in increasingly gratified delight.

The actor, feeling that his wife is tiring of him after six short months of marriage, resolves to put both his Art and his happiness to test. He impersonates an officer of the Imperial Russian Guards, invades his own home, sets out to seduce his own wife. In the last act, he confronts her with the results of his research. She insists she knew him all the time. Whether she did or not is a speculation that makes the play that much more entertaining.

Both Mr. Lunt and Miss Fontanne played their portions of the entertain ment very near the point where criticism fades before perfection. Dudley Digges and Helen Westley, standbys of the Guild, were well-selected second fiddles.

Gilbert W. Gabriel-- The most iridescent trick the season of comedies has yet turned."

Percy Hammond--"A delicate, sophisticated comedy, fit for observation by the smarter type of drama lover."

Hcywood Broun--"The object is mockery. . . . Regrets are no part of its mood."

The Firebrand might well be described as History in cap and bells. The author (Edwin Justus Mayer-- his first play) has appropriated, with satirical intent, sections of the Cellini legend and made it over into bedroom farce. He has evolved an Apocryphal tilt between Cellini and the Duke of Florence over a pretty model. He has seasoned and complicated it with the Duchess' reckless regard for the .young silversmith.

A few moments before the curtain's rise, Cellini commits a murder. The Duke arrives to announce that the murderer must hang--only to be completely diverted from his purpose by the'shapely model. He is followed in the action by the Duchess, who desires Cellini's love. That evening, all assemble on the balcony of the Winter Palace and dodge in and out of doors. For the last act, farce turns to comedy--and the play achieves its fullest flavor of finesse.

Joseph Schildkraut clamors, kisses and clowns as Cellini. For those who fancy Schildkraut, there is much of him. Frank Morgan, as the Duke, gives the only other important performance of the play.

Alexander Woollcott--"A jovial entertainment, full of hearty Renaissance humor related in purest Brooklynese."

Cock o' the Roost is a glad play about a loud speaker. He is a youth who cannot abide the minute routine of starting at the bottom. Instead, he deals in Rolls-Royces and apartment houses and by the end/of the play he is wealthy. In the process of attaining this blessed state, he talks a great deal about banishing fear and being honest with yourself and the unpleasant state of stupidity in which the kings of business find themselves. There are a couple of girls in the picture and a poor detective-story writer whom the loud speaker rescues from a nervous breakdown. Only the most blandly vacuous and the veriest tyros of the theatre can regard Cock o' the Roost favorably.

The New York Times--"Written against the grain of plausibility."

Clubs Are Trumps. Golf, advertising and tinned soups strung through a tedious evening is the nutshell note by which this play must be described. The hero helps himself to a high-salaried job through his proficiency on the links. By the time these words appear the play will probably have been stored away forever.

Stark Young-- "In Clubs Are Trumps, the theatrical season may boast that it hit bottom."