New Plays

The Creaking Chair has an unusual history. It was written by an American, Allene Tupper Wilkes, and first produced in London. That stately metropolis promptly seized upon it and paid thousands of pounds for many months for the privilege of tingling to its grisly thrills. Then it was produced in Boston by a stock company, and so delighted that only slightly less stately community that it ran for six weeks against all the policies of the stock troupe. With these glistening references it comes to Manhattan and turns out to be a very ordinary mystery play with a mixture of burlesque.

An Egyptian headdress is the centre of fright. It was stolen from an Egyptian tomb and has ended up in a plain English country house, which is very properly upset by long, naked arms reaching from behind portieres. It is reliably reported that this play was written in all seriousness and in rehearsal evinced a cranky tendency to sound funny at the wrong moment. Therefore it was made funny in a few more spots and blandly billed as burlesque.

Reginald Mason, E. E. Clive (from the Boston Stock Company), Eleanor Griffith and others spoke their pieces capably enough. In fact everything was all right except the play. Even that seemed to serve in England. But, unfortunately for those concerned, Manhattan is not London. Probably Boston was only fooling.

Mama Loves Papa. A wobbly little comedy about marriage appeared under this awkward title and was not very fervently applauded. The two young things of the title phrase stumbled innocently and separately into a wicked cocktail party in the city. It took two acts of explanation to restore them to each other's arms. The presence in the cast of John E. Hazzard, bibulous and bald comedian, was often helpful.

The Virgin. The strange unplumbed affinity between religious exaltation and sex, which was the motif of Rain, has tempted another playwright. He is Arthur Corning White, who teaches English at Dartmouth, and his play has been trimmed and tuned to the theatre by Louis Bennison, an actor. Between them they have turned out a somewhat self-consciously sensational entertainment which has spots of fiery brilliance.

Into a New England town comes a childlike French Canadian and promptly mistakes the heroine of the play (Phyllis Povah) for the Mother of Christ. A partly crazed preacher furnishes the religious frenzy, and the last act is chiefly valuable for a scene in which the French Canadian realizes the girl is not God and destroys most of her clothing. Miss Povah is one of the dependable actresses whose presence on the stage prevents any play from being wholly uninteresting. Which, it may be added, The Virgin was not.