New Plays in Manhattan

A Free Soul. The Ashes of San Francisco were a haughty clan, not given traditionally to consorting with the common people. But Stephen Ashe, pater of the family, went abruptly modern and brought up his daughter to disregard the devil of the population dregs. He was an acute lawyer, friend of sharpers, sporting souls, and men selling rum. These he introduced freely to his daughter, on the grounds that she was mistress of her soul. She married an important gambler who, conventional creature, presently shot a man for yearning for his wife. Father Ashe pulled himself out of delirium tremens into which he had genially subsided long enough to take the case and win acquittal. As the curtain fell, he died. Ashes to ashes.

All this made an acceptable melodrama for the inexacting. Out of a populous troupe the performance of Lester Lonergan as the liquored lawyer projected prominently.

Diversion. This large, tearstained portrait of flabbiness took considerable acting. The young man had to make you like him or throttle you with boredom as he throttled the leading lady in the last act with his two hands. The seemingly inexhaustible supply of agreeable young Englishmen earning their living on the stage was tapped and the lines taught to Richard Bird. He made his first considerable impression in Manhattan playing Poet Marchbanks to Katherine Cornell's Candida three seasons gone. Many a playgoer thinks him the most ingratiating creature of his type at large. These will applaud Diversion.

Mr. Bird falls fabulously in love with a famed actress. Having had numerous lovers, she includes him amiably. Bored with his stormy pleas for monandry and marriage, she laughs in his face. He jumps at her throat, forgets to let go. Then he goes home to a fond father, famed doctor, who appreciates the hopelessness of things and arms him with a painless poison.

The mostly British troupe played this invention with the noiseless gentility of their ilk. Cathleen Nesbitt as the great, no-good actress is good but no great actress. Sir Guy Standing was excellent in the difficult part of the motherly father. Mr. Bird was progressively intense, sibilant, collapsible. Devotees deemed it one of the notable performances of the season.

Rosalie. The market value of Marilyn Miller is some thousands of dollars higher than that of any actress in the world save the bigger sisters of the cinema. She commands $6,000 a week (on a percentage arrangement dependent on the takings) for some 24 hours work each seven days in Rosalie. In return for the $6,000 she gives, chiefly, footwork; the lesser abilities of her improving voice; a routine competency in speaking lines; a face regarded lovingly by thousands; a devastating buoyancy. She adds all these things to Rosalie; other items are added by jouncingly jovial Jack Donahue; Florenz Ziegfeld adds his usual effulgent costumes, chorus girls. George Gershwin has written some music and Sigmund Romberg has written some more. If there is any fault in Rosalie it is superabundance; in everything, that is, but jokes. Such as they are they hang on a plot about a royal family (derived from Queen Marie and Princess Ileana) and an aviator (Col. Lindbergh). The king of the family ultimately abdicates to permit his daughter to wed the glorious American. But not without complications. Tired of the dull, ornate routine of kingery, the monarch confides in Mr. Donahue that he longs to abjure his Divine Right, take his real name, and become a private, unharassed citizen.

"Great," says Mr. Donahue; "I'll fix it. What's your name?"

"Cyril Popovitich Vladimir Emmanuel Bludnosh."

"Old man," says Mr. Donahue help lessly, "I guess you better stay king."

Cock Robin. Publishers know that detective stories are a staple. So many copies will be sold each season regardless of a Michael Arlen's passing influence on the literary market. Just so, mystery plays. No season since the War has been without one, two or three of them. Wherefore another was last week unboxed and set to work. It contained the requisite mixture of funny things and fright. It worked pretty well.

In the midst of the harried annual production of the Cope Valley Community Players (amateur, very) is thrust a real live murder. Hancock Robinson (Cock Robin), for whom little love exists among the other players, appears to be shot in the duel scene in the second act. Later examination reveals that somebody knifed him in the back. As in most mystery plays, the playwrights seem deeply mystified, pointing the accusing finger at innocent after innocent. But in the end they get their man.

Beatrice Herford, famed monologist, has a twitteringly conspicuous role, particularly well handled as she steps before the curtain to deliver the inevitable amateur oration on the proceeds ($125) and losses of the Cope Valley Community Players. This Cock Robin was written by Philip Barry (Paris Bound) and Elmer Rice. (On Trial.)