New Plays in Manhattan

Simple Simon is the newest enterprise of Florenz (Follies) Ziegfeld. It sets a record for decorum exceeding even that of the latest Fred Stone revel (TIME, Feb. 24), probably not equalled since the belles of another generation swished their skirts naughtily in the direction of bald heads' row. Its dialog scarcely even alludes to any difference between the sexes and whenever any of its chorines appears in tights she is so drenched in colored lights, so safely enrapt in fantasy, that she might as well be wearing a mackintosh.

Ed Wynn is the featured jester: he who is plump and lisping, who wears horn glasses and exhibits inventions. This year he has fashioned a nightdress guaranteed not to become uncomfortably entwined about the body -- it is truncated under the arms. As a Coney Island shop-owner who falls asleep and dreams of Fairyland, he wanders into enchanted woods. "I love the woods," he continually explains. There he is troubled by large and grotesque faces, by a contortionistic frog. He tells a story of a carrier pigeon whose wings were injured but who still managed to reach his destination. "Gee," he exclaims, "were his feet sore!"

Harriet Hoctor, one of the few musi- comedy dancers who is still billed as premiere danseuse, justifies the title by leading the chorus, all attired in crimson riding habits, through a maze of green hurdles. And there is Ruth Etting, a pensive blonde who sings one of the best tunes Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart ever wrote -- "I Still Believe You.'' Children will hugely enjoy Simple Simon; their elders may profitably join them.

Ed Wynn (Edwin Leopold) lives with his wife and child in Great Neck, L. I. The son of a Philadelphia milliner, he acted as a boy in a barnstorming troupe. His father had other ideas, sent him to the University of Pennsylvania, then out on the road to sell hats. But the son revolted, became a low-comedy vaudevillian, remained one for eleven years. In 1914 he was given a part in the Ziegfeld Follies. Other Wynn appearances were in The Perfect Fool, Grab Bag, Manhattan Mary.

Those We Love. If the prevalence of a dramatic theme is any indication of the mores of the general public, then the U. S. must be full of married couples who are trying to decide whether occasional infidelities, particularly the husband's, affect what they refer to as their love. George Abbot and S. K. Lauren have written a suburban drama, in which the former appears, about a novelist who goes to a hotel with a discontented matron Awhile his wife is out of town. He is duly repentant and places no great significance on his sexual tangent. The wife is rather distraught and decides upon a separation, even though it means unpleasantness for their young son who has been home from preparatory school while the adultery was being exposed. But when matters are explained to the boy he professes a tolerant love for his father, which stimulates the wife to do the same.

Because it suggests how completely disagreeable the results of man's illicit motions toward pleasure are apt to be, this play is more persuasive than the outline would indicate. George Abbot presents an effortless, natural portrait of the casual Westchester man-of-letters. Edwin Phillips, as the son, is that great dramatic rarity --an accomplished, likeable adolescent.

The Infinite Shoeblack. Will the whole Finance Ministers and Upholsterers and Confectioners of modern Europe undertake in joint-stock company, to make one Shoeblack happy? They cannot accomplish it, above an hour or two; for the Shoeblack also has a soul quite other than his stomach.--Sartor Resartus.

This profound thesis is considerably diluted in a new drama by Britisher Norman MacOwan which substitutes sentimentalism and pasteboard glamor for the more rugged emphasis of the late great Thomas Carlyle. Actor Leslie Banks is introduced as a penniless Scotsman, living morally and thriftily in the garret of a bordello and studying to be an insurance actuary. Actress Helen Menken is a wan creature who faints on his doorstep. He befriends her to the extent of a bed, a portion of his gruel and the services of a doctor. The backslid daughter of a scholar, she can quote reams of the pious Carlyle, but she compares her own way of life to that of Aspasia, most successful of the Athenian courtesans. The Scotsman talks of her soul; he signs another man's name on his own examination paper in order to get money to provide her with a rest-cure in Spain.

He next encounters her in Cairo during the War; he has lost an arm in His Majesty's service and she is the luxurious mistress of a General. When she invites him to a tete-a-tete dinner against an archway filled with the radiant Egyptian sky, he spoils the event by broaching matters of the spirit again. "You women," he declares, "promise everything and give nothing--you promise everything; the sun, the stars and the tops of green hills." So affected is she by a vast amount of this sort of phraseology that she returns to Edinburgh as his dutiful wife, bears him a child, and dies as a consequence. Her death only serves to accentuate the happiness of the couple--to demonstrate that Carlyle was right.

Playwright MacOwan's somewhat misapplied earnestness is ably abetted by Actor Banks, whose moral austerity and quirks of personality convincingly reek of heather. Actress Menken's husky voice has always been effective when sober things were being spoken; she still achieves miracles of makeup which make her seem almost beautiful. One of the season's most extraordinary moments occurs when, as a barefoot invalid, she extends her foot toward the audience and spreads and wiggles her toes with astounding flexibility.

Apron Strings. Pansy Pomeroy, lady columnist, died leaving her son a multitude of letters telling him how to conduct his life. The effect of this legacy becomes apparent when he takes a bride. So completely impersonal is he toward her that it begins to seem as if he had never been apprised of a husband's obligations. There is a quarrel, but several shots of Scotch suffice to break the mother-fixation and the play ends with enlightenment in the offing. There is a great deal to be said for the humorous treatment of modern psychology. But here the humor is not half so subtle as the pathological dilemma used as its basis. Jefferson de Angelis is amusing as the lawyer who realizes that liquor has always been an aid to the bashful.

The Plutocrat was originally a novel in which Booth Tarkington rather effectually rebutted Sinclair Lewis's Babbitt by describing the world travels of an Omaha porkpacker who, for all his bluster and gaucherie, was admirable rather than asinine. His virtues were particularly apparent by contrast with those of an epicine playwright whom he encountered on the way. In dramatizing the story, Arthur Goodrich has entirely neglected this central theme, has treated all the characters broadly and achieved a completely banal degree of farce. The performance by Charles Douville Coburn, Ivah Wills Coburn and their supporting cast is, at best, foolish.

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