New Play in Manhattan

Shoot the Works! Nobody could accuse Heywood Broun of misanthropy. Weighed down by public woe, he has run for Congress on the Socialist ticket, flayed Mayor Walker in his World-Telegram colyum, and now, saddened by the plight of the jobless actors, has staged a cooperative revue. None but the players can profit. If the show succeeds they will be paid; if not they will be no worse off than before. The show's backers expect no profits.

Broun, untidy and elephantine, acts as master of ceremonies. He contributes a philosophical sketch, "Death Says It Isn't So," which critics said belongs in no revue. He takes part in flippant blackouts--in one he has to wriggle his giant form under a bed. He sings. In his curtain talks he fingers his straw hat diffidently, looks incredibly happy when his jokes cause laughter, bewildered when they do not. Sample of the Broun humor: "I made a bet that Abie's Irish Rose wouldn't run a week. . . . Finally I bet that it wouldn't run forever."

The precise moment when the play begins is indeterminable. The perspiring summer audience enters to face a stage empty save for stepladders, light fixtures, odds & ends of stage tackle. Men in shirt sleeves, girls in bathing suits walk about chattering, apparently oblivious of the spectators. The job of selecting a chorus begins. Mortality was high among the sketches when first-night critics had done with them. Even the old hide-the-lover-in-the-closet blackout is exhumed. Boisterously the audience laughs at a burlesque of the unctuous radio announcer. Of the songs, all donated by their authors, four promise to be hits. Prolific Irving Berlin con tributes "Begging for Love." Others acclaimed with spirit: "I'm Just a Doorstep Baby," "Hot Moonlight," "My Heart's a Banjo."

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