New Plays in Manhattan

New Plays in Manhattan

Trois Jeunes Filles Nues. French musical comedy is seldom written home about. Tourists are either ashamed about it, or don't understand it, or spend their time in the Louvre. One hardly would have expected to see a French revue imported to Broadway and presented in its native tongue with any degree of success. However, it has now been done and the result is far from discouraging. A company managed by J.A. Gauvin began a New York engagement last week with a piece entitled Trois Jeunes Filles Nues, which, for the sake of the censor, was translated as "Three Girls From The Folies Bergere." The book, by Yves Mirande, was innocuous enough and the music, by Raoul Moretti, was light and gay and altogether pleasant. In addition, the chief comedian, M. Servatius, turned out to be an exceedingly droll fellow. Not the least of the visitors' charms was their unpretentiousness. The French do not spend much on their musical comedies. It is a relief to sit through an evening without being asked to watch armies of chorus ladies parade past in what the best dressed woman will not wear. After a week of Trois Jeunes Filles, Producer Gauvin, versatile, shifted his company to Ta Bouche, a Paris hit of 1925-27.

Indiscretion. There has not been anything quite like this one on Broadway since the last horsecar. Myron C. Fagan, who wrote it, either is kidding the public or he is kidding himself. If he meant it seriously, it's terrible. If he dashed it off with his tongue in his cheek it's very good. There hasn't been so much plot in one place since East Lynne. It all begins in Venice with a clandestine love affair. Then comes the villain to take the hero back to his dying father. Eighteen years and a good deal of dirty work pass. The hero has married the railroad king's daughter and the heroine has become a great actress. Each thinks the other has played false. The villain has attended to that. For revenge the heroine attempts to win the fiance of the hero's daughter, who, of course, turns out to be the heroine's own daughter. And so on--far into the night. It is difficult to tell whether the players are in on the joke. They are as incredible as the plot but that may be just part of the game. Certainly no one was ever more villainous than Arthur Vinton, and without a black moustache, too. The only touch of reality is lent by Betty Lancaster, an ingenue with the makings of a Future.

Conflict. Even at this late date the War's casualties continue very real in health clinics and on the stage. This is the story of the hero who won his halo largely through lack of imagination, only to find that it would not fit on the hatrack back home. It is an exceedingly interesting study of the blind arrogance of one of the War's own children in conflict with the equally blind forgetfulness of the world to which he returned. It just misses being a fine play. Its chances of success are greatly enhanced by the presence of Spencer Tracy as the hero, and Frank McHugh, whose characterization of a top-sergeant is one of the crack performances of the season. She Got What She Wanted. Evidently on the theory that if the triangle play has been successful the rectangle play should be still more so, George Rosener has written one about three men and a maid. Subtly done it might not have been bad, but Mr. Rosener apparently wrote it with a sledgehammer, and the cast plays it through a megaphone. The Earth Between. The latest play to fall into the hands of the experimental Provincetown Playhouse group is agricultural in background but cannot exactly be said to solve the problem of farm relief. It is a harrowing study of a widowed farmer and his almost maniacal desire to hold, against odds of youth and love, his young daughter. For his motives, see Freud. The play has a certain intensity of gloom, but much of its force is lost in clumsy ambiguity. However, it permits Miss Bette Davis to do an effective bit of acting as the daughter. For a curtain-raiser there is Eugene O'Neill's Before Breakfast. This is a one-act play with a single character--an embittered wife up to her ears in woe. It is one of Mr. O'Neill's earlier works and has all of his early melancholy weight. The cast, Mary Blair, did very well.