New Plays in Manhattan

The Silver Whistle (by Robert McEnroe; produced by the Theatre Guild) tells how a spacious liar and accomplished charlatan rejuvenates an old folks' home. A 47-year-old hobo, Oliver Erwenter (Jose Ferrer) poses as a superbly virile codger of 77 and passes out to the men folk a magical aphrodisiac (actually, small bread pellets). He tells lordly yarns of foreign travel and female conquest; makes flamboyant love to a young lady employed at the home; and with a bit of help, swipes the equipment and supplies for a rousing charity bazaar. Though the truth about him gradually leaks out and he himself at last goes away, his rosy swindle continues to bear fruit.

A sadly uneven affair, The Silver Whistle is all the same a pleasantly unusual one. There may be nothing new about the theme (which is simply that people crave illusions, that while there's hope there's life), but the particulars are often fresh and lively. Mildly Saroyanesque throughout and a trifle Pollyannaish at the end, in its best scenes The Silver Whistle is genuinely funny, whether from the hobo's taradiddles or from dodderers who, with one foot in the grave, suddenly kick up commotion with the other.

Unhappily the hobo's gift of the gab makes him tedious as well as fascinating; and the elderly capers, if picturesque at times, at other times turn rancid. Obviously pleased with his own joke, Playwright McEnroe sometimes lets it run on too long, sometimes lets it go too far. What tremendously braces The Silver Whistle's very shaky charm is Jose Ferrer's very assured performance. A master of florid roles, a born Cyrano de Bergeractor, Ferrer spouts and yarnspins with an air, never trades tinseled make-believe for drab reality.

The Young and Fair (by N. Richard Nash; produced by Vinton Freedley in association with Richard Krakeur) deals with life at a fashionable junior college for girls. And there's considerable life to deal with, for behind its trim ivied walls Brook Valley harbors more problems than an arithmetic book.

From the head of the school (Frances Starr) who would like to serve God but is forced to serve Mammon, to the student (Lois Wheeler) who lacks the courage to admit she is Jewish, people are harassed and torn two ways. All this (and kleptomania too) catches the eye of a bullying, power-hungry student (Doe Avedon), a rich trustee's daughter who, when she cannot command, can only conspire. Like the brat in The Children's Hour, she twists and messes up lives, but in this case things get straightened out before the end.

The Young and Fair has a real sense of how thorny and bewildering life can be: an endless emotional seesaw, a constant moral crossroads. It understands, too, how snobbish institutions like Brook Valley help strangle decent impulses. Unfortunately it has not let bad enough alone, but has gone at ticklish human problems with the red hot pincers of melodrama, and has so loaded itself down with wiles and theatrics that it finally caves in. There is so much plot that there is no real plight; the words, like the deeds, smack at times of garish melodrama.

But The Young and Fair, though a botch, is by no means a bore. There is always far too much happening, far too much threatening. And an all-female cast acts the play to the hilt--and at moments quite convincingly.

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