The Best Plays

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

Drama

THE WILD DUCK--The driving power of Ibsen in an anti-idealistic drama said to be a satire on the playwright's own life story.

WHAT PRICE GLORY?--The mud and salty language of the U. S. marines rewritten by one who learned the lesson of the trenches.

THEY KNEW WHAT THEY WANTED --About California, but human passions and the plight of a farmer whose wife betrayed him are substituted for the sunshine-cinema convention.

SILENCE--The season's single mystery melodrama which has stood the test of ever increasing scepticism on the part of an increasingly blase public.

DESIRE UNDER THE ELMS--Eugene O'Neill concerns himself with the bitter contraries of lonely domestic life on a New England farm.

WHITE CARGO--Where the white man mingles with the native after years of African loneliness.

THE DOVE--Highly colored Mexican melodrama veneered with all the Belasco art of accurate atmosphere.

Comedy

CANDIDA--Peggy Wood now replaces Katherine Cornell in this early comedy --some think the best--of Bernard Shaw.

SHE HAD TO KNOW--Grace George gracefully involved with Bruce McRae in an exceedingly polite sex discussion.

THE FIREBRAND--Relates that the ancients (medieval Italy) had their bedroom scenes, their infidelities and their artistic heroes (Benvenuto Cellini).

MRS. PARTRIDGE PRESENTS--A reverse twist on the modern problem of what to do with John and little Jennifer when they suddenly decide to embark upon a life of Art.

THE SHOW-OFF--A great volume of hot air emanates from a typical American. He talks incessantly and can never be accused of thought.

QUARANTINE--A quiet fable of a girl who ran away with another girl's lover because she wanted to marry him--and did.

THE GUARDSMAN--Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne in a delightful Continental tale of how to seduce your own wife without her suspecting it.

IS ZAT SO?--Tough prize-fighter talk in the sacred portals of a haughty Fifth Avenue establishment.

THE FALL GUY--More tough talk but this time in a Harlem flat. Ernest Truex is the unfortunate hero who became a bootlegger against his will.

Musical

Singing and dancing is best combined in the following musical diversions: Ziegfeld Follies, The Student Prince, Rose-Marie, Lady, Be Good; Music Box.