New Plays

The Climax. Seventeen years ago this play was given to Manhattan and seemed to please. As resuscitated to amuse the captious and discerning playgoer of the present, it seems simply another revival. In this season, after about 30 of them, revivals have become a drug on the Manhattan market.

The girl from home who wants to be a singer in the city--this tale is often told. In this case the home-town doctor has hypnotized her into believing she cannot sing --after a throat operation. He of course wanted to marry her. In the closing moments of the play she recovers both voice and balance, bursts into song, and everybody is content. Dorothy Francis, once of the Chicago Opera Company, favors with the unusual combination of an actress and a voice.

The Princesss Theatre Company of Madrid. One of the major entertainment aggregations of Spanish and Brazilian evenings burst into the huge Manhattan Opera House for a week of repertory. They are Maria Guerrero and Fernando Diaz de Mendoza with various assistants. The word "burst" is used advisedly. The Spaniards played with more explosive energy than any troupe of melodramatists that one may see in this inhibited country off the one-night stands. This, apparently, is what the Spanish crave, Raquel Meller to the contrary. Maria Guerrero had the most to do. She fulminated and she growled, stamped and tore the plays to bits. Most of them were lurid melodramas, sensitive to this sort of treatment. Spaniards in the packed galleries howled back their delight with equal fervor. Nordics called it movie acting, excellent of its type but uninteresting to us. Some of them cruelly termed the proceedings "manana oil."

The Great Temptations. Summer came irrevocably last week to Manhattan when the Shuberts presented the first of the vast hot-weather revues. The Winter Garden, scene of unending parades of glowing damsels and the only first class playhouse in which one smokes, has never witnessed more elaborate proceedings. It seemed as if the chorus girls must have been drafted, there were so many of them. There were more principals than there were generals in the War. There were masses of gorgeous scenery and scores of swoops for the trombones. There were cool costumes and warm dancing. In fact there was everything but wit. So tremendous was the show that the lack of laughter glared ominously. The elaboration bore down upon the spectators' sensibilities and became oppressive. Accordingly, The Great Temptations stood forth as an exceptionally dull revue. It is not impossible that the producers may hurriedly purchase jokes and humorists in abundance and lighten up their handiwork. In such a case the show should be an enviable success; at present it is a lazy heavyweight. Miller and Lyles, colored comics, obliged with a few jokes. Hazel Dawn, one-time famed "Pink Lady," was the prettiest principal. But in a time of red-hot temptations, hers are mauve.

Best Plays

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

SERIOUS

LULU BELLE--Lenore Ulric depicting in no uncertain terms the rise and fall of a Negress courtesan.

YOUNG WOODLEY--An English schoolboy's discovery of the heart-breaking storm of love. Mainly Glenn Hunter.

THE GREAT GOD BROWN--Eugene O'Neill's wise but wild investigation into the unwritten commandment that thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's brains.

BRIDE OF THE LAMB--Alice Brady giving a burning portrait of a lonely woman who fell in love with a ranting revival minister.

CRAIG'S WIFE--About a woman who had less respect for her husband than she had for specks of dust on her polished floors.

LESS SERIOUS

WHAT EVERY WOMAN KNOWS-- Barrie's gentle comedy capitally performed by Helen Hayes.

THE LAST OF MRS. CHEYNEY--English accents and English wit in a slim comedy of stolen pearls. Ina Claire and Roland Young.

AT MRS. BEAM'S--The facile tale of two horrible malefactors turned loose in a placid English boarding house.

THE ROMANTIC YOUNG LADY--A girl whose dream lover suddenly arrived and showed that dreams differ from flesh and blood.

THE WISDOM TOOTH--A man who recaptured his childhood long enough to recover his courage.

CRADLE SNATCHERS--A ribald week-end with three married women who borrowed three undergraduates for flirting purposes.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST--Oscar Wilde's knifelike philosophy in excellent revival.

MUSICAL

Youth--female, comic and musical--is in these appropriately displayed: lolanthe, Sunny, The Cocoanuts, Tip-Toes, The Student Prince, The Vagabond King, No, No, Nanette.