New Plays in Manhattan

Hit the Deck was extracted from an old Belasco play entitled Shore Leave, the plot of which charts the adventures of the hostess (Louise Groody) of a sailors' inn, who follows in the wake of Sailor Bilge Smith (Charles King), finally towing him away from all those sweethearts in every port to her own suddenly acquired opulence. In addition to merry tunes, jolly chorus, salty high-spirits, the show has the rarest quality of the season--humor. The Thief. In her fourth attempt of the year, talented Alice Brady has hit upon a revival. Henri Bernstein's play was written two decades ago, in the era that demanded of the theatre a Big Scene with plenty of soft sweetness sandwiched in and around. The heroine steals from a wealthy, extravagant friend, in order to dress so well that her husband (Lionel Atwill) will always love her. The husband suspects less tender motives. The big scene looks as if it were pitching for tragedy. But that impulse cracks in the middle of the last act, and the playwright pastes on a happy ending, including love, faith and a wholesome dose of moral retribution. Miss Brady, as usual, ably projects her emotional scenes. But she, like any other performer who would essay the role, looks ridiculous in the heaping portions of lovey-dovey that were just too darling about the last fringe of the Victorian period but smell even more pungent than camphor balls now.

Enchantment. Here the situation concerns a group of people stranded during a snowstorm in a country home. They all make believe they are lords and ladies, except the real lords and ladies, who make believe they are servants. Dull.

The Circus Princess. Invariably, inevitably, Shubert operettas record the travail of royalty romancing incognito, the while platoons of chorus girls in superlatively gorgeous colors stamp across brilliant backgrounds. The Circus Princess is "the most pretentious operetta ever presented by the Messrs. Shubert." What happens:

1) A deposed princeling (Guy Robertson) earns his living as a circus acrobat.

2) Under an assumed title, he marries the Princess of the Land, thus employing the relatively novel device of double incognito.

3) Though denounced as an impostor, he stays married, because he is so handsome.

When "Poodles" Hanneford traipses on and off galumphing horses in the circus scenes, the show is lively. When George Bickel appears in the last act as a head waiter, it is partially resurrected with a few laughs.

Mixed Doubles worries over two couples who thought they were married, discovered they were not, yet were, thereby getting tangled up in more complication than art.