New Play in Manhattan

While the Sun Shines (By Terence Rattigan; produced by Max Gordon) called forth critical comparisons with Noel Coward, P. G. Wodehouse, The Importance of Being Earnest and The Voice of the Turtle. The comparisons, however, were on a basis of genre rather than genius; Playwright Rattigan's sun starts to set after a bright first act. Mixing all-too-familiar elements, While the Sun Shines winds up as both a mongrel and a bit of a museum piece.

On the eve of his marriage, the mildly dimwitted Earl of Harpenden provides a potted U.S. lieutenant with a lodging for the night and a discarded ladylove. The lieutenant, however, mistakes the earl's fiancee (Anne Burr) for the fancy woman, and the two promptly fall in love. Almost as promptly the pair are involved with a farcical Free French officer, the trollop, and the fiancee's ducal deadbeat of a father (well played by Melville Cooper). Thereafter the confusion grows, the enjoyment dwindles.

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