New Plays

Mozart. Where many another impresario has failed, Producer A. H. Woods has succeeded in luring the famed Guitrys (Sacha Guitry, French actor-playwright, Yvonne Printemps, his actress-wife) to the U. S. They presented M. Guitry's Mozart, the same dresden-china play of virginal genius in which Irene Bordoni appeared earlier this season (TIME, Dec. 6). Though Yvonne Printemps' radiant personality breathes life into the titular role (which was created especially for her), the play still seems fragile to the point of brittleness. The Guitrys were cordially received but the handicap of dialogue in foreign language militates against their popularity.

Peggy-Ann. Aided bv Gilbertian satire, Broadway slapstick, attractive dancers, the pepper of quick wisecracks, the charm of music, Peggy-Ann skipped right up to the head of the class in current musical diversions. Peggy-Ann (Helen Ford), a Cinderella in love with a penniless prince, falls asleep, dreams a crazy romance of department store and Cuban summer resort adventure. Helen Ford and Lester Cole sing the song hits, "In His Arms," "A Tree in the Park." Lulu McConnell, stylish stout comedienne, Charlestbns, croons, while pretty Betty Starbuck, as a clownish brat, keeps the audience a-roaring.

The Devil in the Cheese (produced in Pasadena a year ago). In Tom Cushing's play, a piece of cheese before bedtime brings on a good dream in which the secret chambers of a girl's mind are explored. Everywhere, the seeker finds the radiant image of her lover enshrined in fancy as President of the U. S., single-handed conqueror of South Sea Island tribes, hero in all things. This sublimated suitor is, in reality, a ship's steward, opposed by the girl's father who prefers a colorless favorite of his own choosing. The action unfolds before the fantastic beauty of Norman Bel Geddes' scenery. The magic of his perspective puts on the stage of a toy theatre, a mountain-top monastery accessible only by hoisting-basket. His heights are dizzy. Though psychoanalysts snickered, the play does weave a gentle enchantment that is not entirely crushed by the method of its whimsey.

The Padre is a French peasant-priest. He mingles with the people, drinks with the soldiers, says: "Hell, yes, you bet your sweet life." An uncouth fellow, given to kissing barmaids in saloons, he is, nevertheless, established as a sterling upright character, for he frowns blackly upon kissing in the salon. When his good-fellowship embroils him in a Parisian night club scandal and the Bishop is about to punish him, the Cardinal pops out from behind the curtain, announces that the padre has a heart of gold. Leo Carillo does the padre, but the real hero is Poilu, high-spirited dog, who wags his tail at the audience, his natural grace left uncropped by the playwright.

What Never Dies. Producer David Belasco and Actor Edward Hugh Sothern, appropriately enough, present a comedy of old age in a youthful scrape. In his 65th year, Tiburtius (E. H. Sothern) has achieved a respectable height of morality without losing the prodigality of 20. So he marries the girl. Thus is soothed the stern conscience of his ancient parent, Rosina von Dollereder (masterfully interpreted by Haidee Wright). Like many another thing concerned with old age, this play about desire in the late 60's waxes garrulous. That is not the fault of able translator Ernest Boyd who took his lines from the original of Alexander Engel. But it is perhaps painful for Actor Sothern, who is made to leap up and down stairs, to dance on the run, to giggle passionately, and, in general, to bound about foxygrandpaly.

Wooden Kimono. Spooks, blue lightning, disappearing corpses, mysterious coffins, a grandfather's clock haunted by creeping hands, on-off lights, dope fiends, shrieks, shots, blow a turgid volume of theatrical smoke over a tiny flame of mystery. As usual the most innocuous-looking person in the cast turns out to be the fiend incarnate. Though the play ends with many an eerie hand and happening unexplained, the effect is hugely successful.

Chicago. Sir James Barrie once wrote a play, The Legend of Leonora, in which a woman murders a man for blowing cigar smoke in her baby's face, is acquitted by a respectable British jury, thus establishes the supreme sanction of motherhood--this with the gentle, whimsical satire that distinguishes all Barrie plays. Maurine Watkins, once a student of Professor George P. Baker of Yale, under whose direction Chicago was written and marked 98%, has seized upon a similar theme. But her method is neither gentle nor whimsical. It is heavy and acidic, prone to dash itself against a Scylla of monotony or a Charybdis of burlesque, while it struggles through the straits of dramatic craftsmanship to launch a fierce attack upon the muddy sentimentality that swells crime waves.

Prologue: A strumpet-wife (Francine Larrimore) murders an automobile salesman lover. Play: while tabloids and less pictorial compeers crowd their sheets with boob-killer gush ("Stork hovers over county jail," "Are American wives safe?" etc.), while the murderess' cell is packed with mash notes, flowers, taffy, while the jury returns a "Not Guilty" verdict to the applause of courtroom throngs, and the heroine of the hour signs a vaudeville contract, ecstatic in her glamor of publicity, a new murderess' fame is blared from the front pages of the Chicago press. Reporters, camera men run off to photograph, interview the latest homicidal novelty, and the brilliant murderess of yesterday fades into a drab legend of stale news. The cast, as so often happens in plays of satirical import, strives to convince the audience that it too is aware of the playwright's spoofing, wherefore the production stumbles more than might have been the case with a less determinedly sophisticated performance. Miss Larrimore looks her part, and acts what there is of it.