New Plays

The Vortex--In a conspicuously eventful week this play from England was easily the sovereign event. As a corollary of this, Noel Coward, playwright and actor, is the week's first personality. Mr. Coward is only 25. He will have, before the season shuts up for the summer, five produced plays in town--Still Life (called Hay Fever in London), Easy Virtue, Fallen Angels, The Vortex and most of Chariot's Revue. In the latter will be sung his famous lyric, "We Must All Be Very Kind to Aunty Jessie."*

When The Vortex was in rehearsal, A. L. Erlanger, veteran of theatrical production and real estate, removed his name from the program because he objected to the situation in the third act where a son describes to her face and with some emphasis Ms mother's moral status. From this and other reports the impression was current that the play was modern, obscene and objectionable. It turned out to be a study, in several of the characters, of idle rich degeneracy. So true was the portraiture, so sure the writing, so engrossing the setting, and so perfect the performance that it occurred to no one to object to anything. The play was unanimously noted as the best of the early season.

The mother in the case is edging into middle age reluctantly. She has devices to stay beautiful; she has no brains; she has a lover. Her son's fiancee and the lover are attracted honestly; want to marry. The son, a neurotic, effeminate youth, bursts into helpless hysteria. It is this last part that Mr. Coward plays; nervously, overpoweringly. Several other characters are English players from the London company. Particularly is the mother's part effective as played by Lillian Braithwaite. And, lest this superlative and swift synopsis should suggest tragedy, be it said that The Vortex is a comedy, one of the sharpest, funniest comedies that you are likely to witness through the winter.

First Flight--Laurence Stallings and Maxwell Anderson, authors of What Price Glory, have written their second play. It concerns Andrew Jackson as a youth in his early twenties. They have set their scene in a rough village on the road to Nashville in 1788. They have made their characters soft spoken, close shooting gentlemen and trappers. Unfortunately they have included too much of the soft speaking and only two close shooting climaxes. In other words the play is too long, dangerously wordy, and often dull.

Captain Jackson arrives at a roadside tavern and promptly pick; two fights. Duels were the custom of the country, and the hour set for the duels is early the next morning. Meanwhile there is a country dance. Jackson falls in love with the local belle argues state rights, the purpose of the Constitution, and the excise tax on whiskey, and forces the duels before their time. One man he kills; the other is so drunk that Jackson fires in harmless disdain over his head. The last act he spends in the girl's cabin, in love making for a time, then in explaining that he is a troublemaking fool (which he is) and his departure.

It would be decidedly unfair to dismiss the play because of its glaring defects. There are a gorgeous fabric of southern dialog, a true echo of the indomitable manhood of What Price Glory, a thrilling love scene, and some moments of shrewd excitement. The play will undoubtedly remain as a valuable, if fanciful, page of U. S. history. The acting of Rudolph Cameron and Helen Chandler in the chief parts was more than satisfactory. And the play is probably the only one ever produced through which the difficult southern dialect was consistently and convincingly maintained.

The Green Hat--In point of public interest this opening was the foremost in what was unquestionably one of the most important weeks in our theatrical history. As much as $100 a seat was offered to A. H. Woods for permission to be present. Celebrities were there in force. Anticipation was acute.

On the whole the play was disappointing. The vogue of Mr. Arlen has thinned with the increasing opinion that a good deal of his material is shoddy. It is highly colored but the dyes run. He does not talk as people talk; his new idiom is not sufficiently imaginative to wear. The phrase, employed by TIME (Sept. 22, 1924) when his books first began to sweep the land, remains the best description: he is the Harold Bell Wright of the sophisticates.

Yet the grip of the play on sentimental and therefore large portions of the public cannot be denied. Alexander Woollcott put his discerning finger on the secret when he called the play a great love story. That it undoubtedly is, and as such must gain an inevitable and not unmerited popularity. But Mr. Arlen is not dealing in a new, smart medium as the world believes. It is love and sacrifice that makes The Green Hat good entertainment; not wit and glittering philosophy.

To Katharine Cornell go most of the praises. Miss Cornell, now undeniably the greatest of the younger actresses, gives the finest performance of her extraordinary career. She rather took Iris March away from Michael Arlen and made her personal property. For her acting alone the production is magnificently worth while. Margalo Gill- more gave brilliant life to Venice; Leslie Howard was pretty good as Napier. Cynics may be disappointed, but The Green Hat will unquestionably enjoy a prosperous existence.

Arms and the Man--The Theatre Guild opened its promised Shaw cycle with the first of the modern war satires. First in date, that is; What Price Glory is probably a deeper satire of the heart of things and soldiers on the line.

As was to be expected the comedy was carefully and admirably prepared. Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, surely our leading stage and off-stage husband and wife, had the leads. Henry Travers, Pedro de Cordoba and other familiar faces rounded out the cast. Since the play was written so many years ago, it was wisely staged in the fashion of that day, and has become, within the lifetime of the author, a costume play.

The playwright is, of course, occupied tearing the trappings from war. He has no sympathy for the tinsel tongue of trumpets nor the romantic tread of heroes. He knows that wounds hurt and that food along the fighting line is not always perfectly prepared. Therefore he spins a love story, puts part of it in uniform, and stands to one side nipping at it with little whips of laughter.

The Guild has promised to do a Shaw cycle which would bring to town this season every important Shaw play that has not been seen recently. If they are all as good as this one, the project will crowd considerably more than the Guild's two theatres.

The Jazz Singer--Jewish life and vocal cords are taken up and talked about in this peculiar play, which is a mixture of sincerity and shoddy theatrics. Undeniably sound and moving in spots, the play has hokum holes which it must walk around with utmost wariness for fear of falling through. There is a gray-haired mother who spends a good deal of the last two acts in tears. There is also a raucous, burnt-cork mammy song and, at the final curtain, a solemn chanting from the synagogue.

Conflict arises between father and son. The former, fourth of a family of cantors, wishes his son to devote his life to God and the synagogue. The son runs away, preferring the songs of the street. He is at the dress rehearsal of a revue that will make him a great star when news comes that his father is dying. The boy deserts his show and takes his father's place as cantor of the church. The story is said to have been inspired by the life of Al Jolson, whose father is a cantor.

George Jessel, come up from vaudeville for the part, betrays now and then the inflexibility inevitable to incomplete apprenticeship. On the whole his restraint and his natural resources for the role (he ia a young black-face singer and comedian) combine into a blended and eminently believable performance.

Courting--A Scottish company, ourring comfortably as Scotsmen will, put up in town with a native comedy. Ever since Bunty Pulls the Strings there have been periodic attempts to recapture the public attention with a play and players from the kilt country. Though Courting is probably the best of the attempts, it is scarcely a sweeping success. It deals with the appearance of jazz and other modern devils' doings in the village of Glentulloch. Naturally the Kirk kicks back. There is an attendant love story; and a normal measue of good acting.

Brother Elks--It means no spirit of disrespect to the Benevolent and Protective brotherhood to say that this is a bad play. The story goes that it was designed as a one-night-stand company to play lodges of the order across the country. There is a long hurrah in the last act for the Elks, which might have made it attractive. Manhattan observers have failed to find any other virtues of writing or performance.

No, No, Nanette--Since this musical comedy has been in Boston, Chicago, Pittsburgh and 40 of 50 other towns for better than 20 months, it would seem an impertinence to advise the world at large that it is a good show. It is, however, one of the few shows that have resolutely kept away from Manhattan, supposedly the money Mecca of the Theatre, and done its road tour first. There are still several companies playing in the smaller cities. The Broadway troupe is headed by Louise Groody and Charles Winninger, as pretty a dancer and as funny a fool as the town now boasts. Mr. Winninger is a married man with a soft heart and a fat head. He falls for the hard luck stories of wandering females and helps to finance their lonely lives. To this his wife, quite properly, objects. There is much excellent dancing and two conspicuous, if now a little elderly, song hits, "Tea for Two" and "I Want to Be Happy"

*We must all be very kind to Aunty Jessie.

She has never been a mother or a wife;

You must not throw your toys at her,

Nor make a vulgar noise at her;

She hasn't led a very happy life.

You must not fill her night gown case with beetles,

Nor play tunes on her enameled Spanish comb;

Though her kiss is sudden death.

It's impolite to hold your breath;

Etc., etc.