New Plays in Manhattan

The World of Suzie Wong (adapted by Paul Osborn from Richard Mason's novel) has a surging advance at the box office, but for the stage it is a shambling step backward. It tells of a young Hong Kong prostitute (France Nuyen) debauched at 13 by an uncle but in essence still fine and pure, and of an even finer and purer young Canadian painter (William Shatner) who, though achingly tempted, resists a loving, willing Suzie in scene after scene after scene. At last, when her baby is killed, he marries her.

As a period-piece reproduction, Suzie Wong comes in the original raspberry plush, with every dusty, looped inanity. every faded, tasseled cliche in place. Joshua Logan's staging nowhere intrudes a jarring present-day touch. Though the swarming street and cafe passages have hurly, and sometimes burly too, the more intimate scenes are all played largo, with silences like swelling organ notes, stares into space that pulse with tension, and pauses aquiver with heartbreak.

Two things run counter to the rest: Jo Mielziner's ingenious, bright sets, and 19-year-old French-Chinese Actress Nuyen's fetching personality. A more slushy than sexy blend of sex and slush, Suzie Wong should linger long on Broadway, just the thing for matinee ladies munching tear-splashed caramels or for gentlemen with a slightly adolescent fondness for tarts.

The Girls in 509 (by Howard Teichmann) are an aristocratic, violently Republican battle-ax and her niece (Peggy Wood and Imogene Coca), who, for the 25 years since F.D.R. went to the White House, have been hiding in a decaying family hotel under assumed names, indulging in weird hobbies, and barricading themselves against possible intruders. When at last someone manages to intrude, the girls turn out to be much less Republicans than know-nothings; they swear by the Literary Digest, are amazed that the banks have reopened and that there is a different Man in the White House. And they are soon as dissatisfied with modern-day Republicans as with New Dealers, though delighted--being broke--that brother Rensselaer's old habit of buying all sorts of screwball inventions has reaped them millions in air conditioning, cellophane and nylon.

Playwright Teichmann's own screwball inventions do not pay off anywhere near so well. The Girls in 509 has truly funny moments, when a gag cuts sharp as a razor, or a prop turns into a vise. But a situation that never develops the slightest bit of story has to be relentlessly kept going with comic-strip characters and hit-or-miss gags. Worse, loud and obvious staging that only Peggy Wood knows how to rise above underlines everything that is tiresome, or tinny, or both. Actually, The Girls in 509 has just enough winning gags and gadgets for a topnotch revue skit. In its present form, Playwright Teichmann, having come up with a bright idea, clung to it until it pulled him down.

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