Theatre: New Plays: May 10, 1926

At Mrs. Beam’s. Manhattan beheld the unusual conflict of two plays by the same author opening on the same night last week. The playwright is C. K. Munro,* of England, and his second comedy was Beau-Strings, discussed below. At Mrs. Beam’s was done by the Theatre Guild in their best manner, evoked delight from the critics and from those who pay to be amused.

It is a boardinghouse play with the usual wild collection of types that inhabit such a hostelry. Into its midst comes a tawdry and mysterious pair (male and female) from Paris. In the current newspapers are stories of a horrible bluebeard who has murdered some two score wives. The gossip group of the boarding house identify their bearded visitor with the villain. He turns out to be simply a cheap crook on his way to his girl’s sanctuary in her native Rio.

The principal character is a Miss Shoe, a birdlike spinster with insatiable appetite for gossip and detective work. For this part Jean Cadell, who played it first in London, was imported. She gave a fluttery, decisive and yet half frightened impersonation, which promptly included itself in the half dozen examples of the season’s finest acting. Alfred Lunt and Lynne Fontanne, as the fugitive couple, assisted with their usual eventful excellence.

Beau-Strings. The curious title was not affixed by Mr. Munro, at least not in the first place. In London the play was called Storm and Miss Gee, the central part, was played by the Jean Cadell whose abilities are agreeably estimated in the previous review. The part is now played, perhaps some-what misplayed, by Estelle Winwood. Both as a play and in performance the piece seems only a runner-up to At Mrs. Beam’s.

Instead of a boarding house the author has selected a summer-resort hotel as the background of his philosophy. Again he features a nosey, flighty spinster. This one is particularly interested in males, especially males in whom other females are interested. Opposed to her in the play’s development is a sensible artists’ model, possessing a maximum of feminine charm and amiability. This part is most agreeably played by Joan Maclean.

There are bits of dialogue in both of Mr. Munro’s plays that cut so close to home that one cannot but squirm for the human race. For these bits Beau-Strings is worth while. Perhaps with Jean Cadell it would seem amazingly important.

Sex. A cheap and sleazy work designed to part the populace from tears, gasps and money was produced under this unmistakable title. The play is about a harlot who falls in love with a respectable and attractive young man. It is perhaps the dirtiest and the dullest play of the season.

*Real name, MacMullen. Born 37 years ago in Ulster, he attended Cambridge University, and now serves the British Crown in the Ministry of Labor. One of the quietest Irishmen alive, he is known to few people. Acquaintances have marked him as interesting, keen, observant. Mrs. Mac-Mullen is better known as Actress Mary Sumner.