New Plays

Ashes. Florence Reed is in tears again. Since she can go down to the centre of the stage and have a good cry better than almost any actress we have, the exhibition is bound to manifest some merit. Miss Reed's tears are shed principally over her baby. This year it is a perfectly legitimate baby, somewhat contrary to the custom of her recent plays. It dies just as she is about to go on to play the big scene in Antony and Cleopatra. . She screams she can't go on, and then does. In the last act, her husband turns out to be unfaithful. She leaves for England--a great actress but a failure in the home. All this is told very seriously, and with a singular tedium. Gilbert W. Gabriel--"Doused in trite, puff-cheeked sentiments, only now and then cured by humor." Alexander Woollcott -- "A gaudy chromo, evidently selected because it provided so many emotional crises in which to exhibit the sundry talents of Miss Florence Reed." Heywood Broun--"I am not at all sure that the ashman would accept it. He would be much more likely to leave it for his fellow city employe with the other cart."