New Play in Manhattan

Russet Mantle (by Lynn Riggs; Mayer & Queen, producers) is supposed to concern itself chiefly with a couple of young New Dealers (Martha Sleeper and John Beal), who sound off at length about Changing the System but, by curtain time, have succeeded only in conceiving an illegitimate baby. However, this juvenile and somewhat embarrassing love affair is not the thing which makes Russet Mantle a notable addition to the Broadway season. Instead of standing around as background for the youngsters, the older members of the cast steal the show for themselves. If this turn of events surprised Playwright Riggs, Playwright Riggs, hitherto noted for poetic horse operas like Green Grow the Lilacs, simply flabbergasted Broadway by revealing an unsuspected talent for Grade A comic characterization.

Aunt Susanna (Evelyn Varden) raises chickens to kill time and mourns for the days when her husband was the "Catch of the South," before "the Northerners caught up with him and trimmed him."

Russet Mantle provides Margaret Douglass of Dallas with a belated triumph. An oldtime trouper whose husband is an excellent Southern-style leading man named Ben Smith, she had found Broadway so obdurate that she preferred to remain unmentioned in the program's "Who's Who" when she was given the part of the free-&- easy young woman's mother. The role is that of a Southern matron whose brain is as frivolous as her dress. It is superbly written, and Texan Douglass projects it magnificently. "Ah always was willowy," she reminds her sister, at a time when the chief topic of interest is her daughter's disappearance. "Every time Ah go downtown in Louis ville somebody says : 'There goes Mrs. Effie Rowley. Isn't she willowy!'" She is frightened only by Indians (one of whom she suggests lynching), wrinkles, and being caught not fully dressed up to the occasion. She squeaks and coos in the approved Kentucky manner, gives Romance her blanket approval and does not mind how outrageously her daughter behaves so long as she is spared the details. Actress Douglass, whose heart is obviously in her work, conclusively endears herself to any member of the audience who has a Southern female relative when, faced with the supreme moral problem of her daughter's disgrace, her final judgment is: "Ah think the world would be a lot better off if everybody lived in Louisville!"

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