New Plays in Manhattan

The Stork Is Dead (by Hans Kottow; Al Woods, producer). Ten or 15 years ago, long before he played the muddled cinema director in Once In A Lifetime, Hugh O'Connell found steady employment in that cycle of dramas which began with Twin Beds and lasted through Getting Gertie's Garter and Up In Mabel's Room. Looking back on those days, it amuses Actor O'Connell to recall one trick of his that never failed to wring hysterical whoops from his audience: slowly pulling off his pants and flinging them at the chandelier. "After that I could just lay back and rest for about five minutes." Unlike the stork, it would appear that boudoir farce has not been dead all these years, just dormant, for the curtain which rises on Playwright Kottow's show discloses right spang in the middle of the stage a fine big bed. Soon a whole set of theatrical tintypes begin to appear: the rake who has promised to disdain his innocent little bride until his mistress gives him permission, a sexy mother-in-law, an officious low comedy father-in-law. To the very evident amusement of its spectators and the disgust of Manhattan critics, the show's dull bawdry continues until innocence melts impatiently into voluptuousness, takes restrained venery by storm.

Lilly Turner (written and produced by Philip Dunning & George Abbott). To anyone interested in U. S. colloquialism is recommended Gasoline Bill Baker's "Pipes From Pitchmen" colyum in The Billboard. It is devoted to the affairs of itinerant vendors of medicines ("med"), penknives ("shivs"), soap ("gummy"), periodicals ("the sheet"), etc. Not so diverting by half is the latest offering of Playwrights Dunning & Abbott (Broadway) which is concerned with a travelling medicine show.

Creaking and groaning, the play tells the barely credible story of Lilly Turner (Dorothy Hall), a cootch dancer who is married to a weakling carnival porter (James Bell, who made the horrifying death walk in The Last Mile). Miss Turner, although possessing a heart of gold, continues a lurid past by surrendering consistently to the medicine show's strong men. One of these, an idiot, throws her husband down some stairs just as she is about to run away to Atlantic City with another.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.