The Best Plays

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

Drama

THE DOVE--Holbrook Blinn and Judith Anderson engaged in a hot controversy over virtue in the Mexican border dance halls.

WHAT PRICE GLORY?-The picture of two U. S. marines at their trade--mud on the outside and alcohol within.

THEY KNEW WHAT THEY WANTED--A sister of the city who married by mail an aged grape grower of California. Called the best American play of the year by the Pulitzer Prize Committee.

DESIRE UNDER THE ELMS--Bitter pages of history from a lonely New England farm where a young wife forgot her gray-haired farmer husband.

THE WILD DUCK--Ibsen's curse upon idealism in an admirably portrayed revival.

WHITE CARGO--Morality that dries under the burning desert sunshine and crumbles at the sight of native woman.

Comedy

THE SHOW-OFF--Glorifies the human loud speaker who tells the world everything.

THE GUARDSMAN--A slight and yet significant discussion by Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne of how good an actor must be to deceive his own wife.

CAESAR AND CLEOPATRA--Wherewith the Theatre Guild opened their new playhouse. No better than it should be and yet in the van of the present pack.

THE FALL GUY--A clothesline and Irish brogue comedy of the worm who turned bootlegger by mistake.

Is ZAT So?--Prizefighters' troubles with the world of pearls and chaperons.

THE FIREBRAND--The edge of satire cuts the ruffle of romance which time had put around Cellini and his Italian friends.

LOVE FOR LOVE--Two centuries and a half have not suffered to dim the lustre of Congreve's comic sophistication.

THE POOR NUT--An exaggerated college tale that wrings laughter for its very exaggerations.

Musical

In the realm of laughter and the dance, there are to be recommended: Rose-Marie, Lady, Be Good; The Student Prince, The Mikado, The Music BOx, Ziegfeld Follies.