A New Play

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the season brought to Manhattan one more little wanderer who should never have been allowed out of manuscript. Probably you cannot keep people from writing these things. About three times a year one of the writers has enough money to put his platitudes into the mouths of actors. Often the audience laughs at the wrong time.

These actors were generally incompetent and their story about the same. It was about a doctor whose wife deserts him because he does not love her. Four years later she returns with a baby in her arms. Sick baby. He refuses treatment. She tells him the child is his. Four nurses and two doctors, all in white, gather round the tiny form. The wife staggers around the edges sobbing: "Will he live? Will he live?" Here the audience laughed.

The Best Plays

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

Drama

WHAT PRICE GLORY?--The stunning story of what really happened when the marines went to France for love and war. (The last month.)

DESIRE UNDER THE ELMS--Eugene O'Neill's rocky narrative of loneliness and infidelity on a New England farm. Has had the longest run of any of his plays.

WHITE CARGO--A shrewd theatrical deduction on what might happen if a white man became too lonely among the native maidens of sandy Africa.

THEY KNEW WHAT THEY WANTED-- In which a San Francisco biscuit shooter transfers to a farm and an old Italian husband. The handsome farmhand sneaks up on their happiness.

Comedy

Is ZAT So?--Ragged slices of most amusing slang sandwiched between Fifth Avenue affluence and the lightweight championship of the world.

THE FALL GUY--The trials of a flat-dweller in Manhattan who could not hold his job and nearly went to jail in the last act.

THE POOR NUT--Undergraduate absurdities made entertaining by a good performance and a general indisposition to take the task seriously.

THE GORILLA--A preposterous and obvious bundle of burlesque on the subject of mystery plays.

CAESAR AND CLEOPATRA--Shaw comedy with Helen Hayes as the flapper Cleopatra.

Musical

August evenings may be well spent in expensive thoughtlessness at: RoseMarie: Lady, Be Good; Ziegfeld Follies, The Student Prince, Artists and Models, Engaged, George White's Scandals, Garrick Gaieties, Grand Street Follies.

Coming Plays

Herewith detailed are some plays for the coming season. It is obviously impossible to present an exhaustive schedule. There is nothing so severely unimportant as an unimportant play. This list includes those which seem in the lottery to have the highest probabilities of success:

August

Spring Fever--A golf comedy by Vincent Lawrence, already played in Chicago under the title of Kelly's Vacation. With James Rennie and Marion Coakley.

Cradle Snatchers is a play in which Mary Boland will attempt to repeat the success of Meet the Wife. Assisting her, Edna May Oliver.

It All Depends--Comedy; locale, America; time, the present. Presenting Norman Trevor, Violet Kemble Cooper, Katherine Alexander.

The Patsy--Another comedy. By Barry Conners with Claiborne Foster. Goes to Chicago for a run.

The Straight Shooter -- Another comedy. This one by George Abbott and Winchell Smith. With Mr. Abbott.

The Pelican, in the form of a London success by F. Tennyson Jesse and H. M. Harwood, will alight with Margaret Lawrence.

The Five O'Clock Man--French comedy, with Arthur Byron and Janet Beecher.

Alias Santa Claus--A play long in Belasco's hands, originally intended for David Warfield. New star unselected.

The Heart Thief--Adapted from the French of the late Sacha Guitry. Starring Billie Burke.

Oh Mama!--Also a French formula for fun, which will serve to bring Alice Brady back after vaudeville and idleness. Normally emotional, she will try farce.

The Jazz Singer--The story of a Hebrew singer of blackface mammy songs. With George Jessel and Phoebe Foster. The Sea Woman--Blanche Yurka and salt water.

The Enchanted April, from the novel by "Elizabeth." With Helen Gahagen, Elizabeth Risdon, Alison Skipworth.

September

The Fall of Eve--A comedy in which a very nice young wife gets cockeyed. Ruth Gordon acting Eve.

The Green Hat--Everybody knows about this one.

The Vortex--Outstanding hit of last-year London. By and with Noel Coward.

All Dressed Up--By Arthur Richman. Polite wit.

Pomeroy's Past--By Clare Kummer. Brings back William Gillette.

The Advocate--E. H. Sothern's return without Julia Marlowe. From the French of Brieux.

First Flight--A story of Andrew Jackson's youth by Maxwell Anderson and Laurence Stallings. (What Price Glory? authors).

The Buccaneer--Based on certain oddities in the life and character of Sir Henry Morgan. With William Farnum and Estelle Winwood. For Boston. By the same Anderson and Stallings.

Most of Us Are--More foolishness from the genial pen of Frederick Lonsdale. Ina Claire may play it.

The Happy Man--A piece by Philip Barry in which Arthur Hopkins is striving to interest Laurette Taylor.

October

Applesauce--A comedy by Barry Connors which entertained Chicago through much of last season. With Allan Dinehart.

The Butter and Egg Man--Satirical fable of the theatre by George S. Kaufman with Gregory Kelly starred.

The Passionate Prince--Designed by Achmed Abdullad and Robert H. Davis; will serve the ornate talents of Lowell Sherman.

The School Mistress--By an Italian, Dario Nicodemi. The schoolmistress is Ann Harding.

The Carolinian--Adapted from Sabatini's novel. For Sidney Blackmer.

The Enemy--A very earnest burst of Channing Pollock anti-war sentiments. With Fay Bainter.

These Charming People--Michael Arlen's second play. Based on bits of the book. With Cyril Maude.