Best Plays in Manhattan

SERIOUS

COQUETTE--A frail beauty in a small southern town disobeys her father, falls in love, commits suicide. Helen Hayes is the girl (TIME, Nov. 21).

STRANGE INTERLUDE--The Theatre Guild unveils Eugene O'Neill's nine act monument to a neurotic lady and the lovers who have failed to make her happy (TIME, Feb. 13).

TWELVE THOUSAND--Mary Ellis handsomely illustrating a demure and determined paragraph out of the unwritten history of Europe (TIME, March 26).

Other well-regarded serious plays: CIVIC REPERTORY PRODUCTIONS, MARCO MILLIONS.

MELODRAMA

THE TRIAL OF MARY DUGAN--In the capacity of jury, the audience hears about a chorus girl who is guilty of much but not of murder (TIME, Oct. 3).

THE SILENT HOUSE--About a Chinaman whose activities are fearfully fatal (TIME, Feb. 20).

INTERFERENCE--Poisoning politely performed among people who would call a murderer a cad (TIME, Oct. 31).

Other able melodramas: DRACULA, THE FURIES.

FUNNY

THE COMMAND TO LOVE--The ambassador enters the boudoir from motives less personal than patriotic (TIME, Oct. 3).

THE ROYAL FAMILY--Stage folk keep the home fires burning brightly (TIME, Jan. 9).

PARIS BOUND--Madge Kennedy in a glib solution of the ball and chain problem (TIME, March 12).

THE BACHELOR FATHER--Bastards, too, can be well bred (TIME, March 12).

Other funny plays: BURLESQUE, THE SHANNONS OF BROADWAY, THE QUEEN'S HUSBAND.

MUSICAL

Hot stuff and nonsense: Funny Face, Good News, Rain or Shine, Manhattan Mary, Keep Shufflin', Take the Air.

Dulcet and decorative: Show Boat, A Connecticut Yankee, The Three Musqueteers.