Theatre: New Plays in Manhattan: Jan. 30, 1928

The Patriot. A massive evening in the theatre awaits the curiosity seeker who hurries here for his entertainment. He will see eight scenes of Russian history roll by; uniformed in scarlet, green and white, majestic with the murder of a Tsar.

Paul I, son of Catherine, Russia’s greatest queen, was crazy cruel with power. Destroying the love of his people at home and the power of Russia abroad, he dug his own grave. Led by Count Pahlen, governor of St. Petersburg, his surrounding servants killed him and reared his son Alexander Tsar in his stead. Pahlen’s struggle with his conscience as he moulds the murder of a trusting friend for the salvation of Russia adds the major note of personal conflict.

Gilbert Heron Miller, who gives good things to our theatre in the grand manner,*fathered the show. The adaptation from the German of Alfred Neumann was done by able Ashley Dukes, Britisher. The scenery, some said the finest factor of the evening, was designed by Norman Bel Geddes. Eminent English Players Leslie Faber and Madge Titheradge were specially imported. Fabulous sums were spent with a devoted flourish. Few men would take such risks. Mr. Miller escapes with every honor. The Patriot is a production to be respected deeply, to be seen by many people with great interest, to be regretted by many for a stateliness which robbed it of keen relish.

International. John Howard Lawson wrote what a lot of people consider the best play in the modern manner yet written by a U. S. playwright. It was Processional produced some seasons ago with none too conspicuous magnetism by the Theatre Guild. Since then those who were stirred by it hasten to see Mr. Lawson’s latest. In this one they were disappointed; Mr. Lawson’s modern manner has sent his play flying in every direction at once. It is in 21 scenes, some of them in Thibet. It purports to be a satire on modern life. There are capitalists, lamas, undertakers, English generals, prostitutes, Japs. Mr. Lawson jumbles them bitterly, bewilderingly.

The Merchant of Venice. Shakespeare has been but scatteringly surveyed this season by the more earnest theatre followers. Save the irreverent and eminently amusing Taming of the Shrew in modern clothes there has been no long run of the Bard’s shows. Therefore, George Arliss was strategically situated to seize serious theatregoers by the ears and drag them toward his Shylock. He may still do so. No one can plot the perversities of theatregoers. Yet it was the feeling of many authorities that his Shylock was indifferent.

That unsavory gentleman, irate because his daughter has eloped with a youth of an opposing race, frantic because he could not extract the pound of flesh which was the price of his loans to one Bassanio, is not one for starched shirts and diamond dignity. The demeanor of flawless respectability which has so often served able Actor Arliss well now plays him false. He finds it difficult to add writhing to his words as they eject “. . . and spit upon my Jewish gaberdine.” He finds it difficult to scream “My daughter, my ducat.”

Peggy Wood, gracious musical comedy star turned serious actress, is a decorative but not always decisive Portia. The show was launched by Winthrop Ames, producer of many a notable endeavor.* It was as usual in true taste, but not always blood spotted with despair or dreamily alive with the enchantment of the poet’s songs of love.

A Distant Drum. Marrying for money is generally regarded as reprehensible, while taking the money without the oath of office is even more severely criticized. Such criticism was finally leveled at the hero of this enterprise, in the form of a gun in the hand of an irate husband. Meanwhile he had been earning a large salary by agitating various affluent females. Finally he fell unexpectedly in love. The gun went off and shot him through his softened heart.

Equipped with gentle batteries of wit. industriously served by Louis Calhern and a good cast the play pleased a minority. Its final tragic act fitted badly the irresponsible beginning.

The Silver Box. More than 20 years before he reached his present dramatic dexterity, famed John Galsworthy, with a problem buzzing under his bonnet, like a bee, wrote this play. The silver box, a receptacle for cigarets, is stolen by a rebellious drunkard, Mr. Jones, to express his antipathy toward the upper classes who have deprived him of the privilege of working for a living. His wife, a charwoman, is suspected of the theft; but before the case reaches court, it becomes obvious that the true culprit is vapid young John Barthwick Jr. who, in a state of supreme inebriation, had been assisted into his father’s home by Mr. Jones, thereby allowing the latter the opportunity for his theft. The last act, a trial scene, allows rich young Barthwick to go unpunished for this and more serious misdemeanors while Mr. Jones is sentenced to a month of hard labor.

Nowadays, it is often Mr. Galsworthy’s method to propound a question without answering it, a method of which the virtues are herein made obvious by contrast. Nonetheless, there are occasional moments when the play achieves the warm pungence of its author’s later works; these are often fumbled by the minor members of the cast but never by Isobel Elsom who plays Mrs. Jones or by James Dale who plays her husband with a loud and feline cockney accent.

Mirrors. What novelists and playwrights, to say nothing of the rocking-chair crowd, owe to the younger generation for material will never be accurately computed. There seems always to be just one more complaint to be voiced. This time it is a smart suburban district festering from the flask infection on its young men’s hips. These young people kiss each other a good deal. For these things they would be presumably damned were it not for one among them who was pure. She shows the path to sobriety, sweetness, light. A little child shall lead them. She had to, because all the mothers and fathers went out drinking and necking even more earnestly. There lies the moral. Nice old father and mother were out getting drunk, playing naughty and picking up a nasty collection of nervous breakdowns. This is a play that no drinking mother should miss.

The First Stone was also the first play by Walter Lewis Ferris. Numerous young men recall Mr. Ferris as headmaster of Roxbury School, Cheshire, Conn. At Cheshire and other educational centres Mr. Ferris has meditated and matured. His first play was written at 45. It is a careful, rather commonplace attempt. The spectator is led into a Cape Cod homestead, from which the brawny husband has been accustomed to absent himself for brief infidelities. When his wife at last departs on a similar errand he grows incredibly enraged. At last they discuss the matter carefully and reconvene for better or for worse. The play is the first U. S. work to be acted by Eva Le Gallienne and her hardy repertory troupe. Miss Le Gallienne’s playing of the lead was often pale; while Egon Brecher, as the husband, overcompensated with his harsh pugnacity.

Best Plays in Manhattan

SERIOUS

COQUETTE—The true, tearstained story of a respectable girl who fell in love with a man they wouldn’t let her marry (TIME, Nov. 21).

PORGY — Life on the underside of Charleston where the Negroes know about poverty (TIME, Oct. 24).

Other well regarded serious productions: ESCAPE; IRISH PLAYERS; Civic REPERTORY THEATRE; BEHOLD, THE BRIDEGROOM.

SEMI-MELODRAMA

INTERFERENCE—Immaculate conception of how to swallow prussic acid in the best behaved British manner (TIME, Oct. 31).

THE TRIAL OF MARY DUGAN—In which the electric chair is placed and a stunning Follies girl is asked “Won’t you sit down?” (TIME, Oct. 31).

BROADWAY—A battle of bootleggers breaks behind the scenes of a Manhattan midnight club (TIME, Sept. 27, 1926).

Other able melodramas: DRACULA, NIGHTSTICK.

FUNNY

THE ROYAL FAMILY—Showing a famed actor family in the spasms of home life (TIME, Jan 9).

THE DOCTOR’S DILEMMA—Elderly, active, arrogant advice on doctors by G. B. Shaw (TIME, Dec. 5).

BURLESQUE—A low comedian who married for love and got delirium tremens for lack of it (TIME, Sept. 12).

THE TAMING OF THE SHREW—The taming of the shrew (TIME, Nov. 7).

THE COMMAND TO LOVE—In which love and European diplomacy go hand in glove, or worse (TIME, Oct. 3).

Other laughing matters: THE SHANNONS OF BROADWAY, THE BABY CYCLONE, PARIS BOUND.

*Max Reinhardt’s German season, The Swan, adaptations of many gay continental comedies.

*Old English, Escape, Gilbert & Sullivan repertory, etc., etc.