Theatre: New Plays In Manhattan: Oct. 10, 1927

Manhattan Mary. For the past few seasons Ed Wynn has been in business for himself* Now, having gone to work for Producer George White,† he suffers slightly. In his own shows Mr. Wynn wrote most of the material and it was fabulously funny. Manhattan Mary was written by others and not all of it is irresistible. Yet only cranks are carping. Mr. Wynn is not as funny as he can be, but he continues safely as one of the five or six funniest men in the world. Surrounding him herein are stunning costumes from the designs of Roman de Tirtoff-Erté and executed by Max Weldy, Parisian; stunning chorus girls from the designs of Divine Providence; and periodic blasts of song. The thing also seems to have a plot, something about a girl from Manhattan slums who became famous in the Folies Bergere. In his most recent Scandals, George White introduced the now virtually incessant Black Bottom. In Manhattan Mary, he supplies a prospective successor—the Five Step. Mr. White himself momentarily joins the cast to exhibit this gyration, recalling days when he was an humble hoofer** for his now greatest rival, Florenz Ziegfeld. This innovation is second only, in importance, to the appearance in the pit of Mr. Wynn leading the orchestra, in which process his back begins to itch—something that well trained conductors’ backs never do. But Mr. Wynn’s does, and he scratches it.

Murray Hill. Leslie Howard†† is so securely one of our best imported English light comedians that anything he is acting in comes already guaranteed. He is not, as yet, one of our’ best playwrights and as far as this (his first effort) goes, the guarantee must be tempered with a hint that Murray Hill is only fairly funny. Mr. Howard has written of spinsters horrified by intoxicated men-about-town; of a will which promises golden future to a young man if he behaves. But he does not. There are two mixed identities and an urbane love interest. As a player, Mr. Howard is, as always, immensely entertaining.

Jimmie’s Women. Jimmie’s woman was really his wife. In a farce she would be. But before this purifying fact came to light the audience had been led laughing, but not immoderately, through the mazes of one of those farces with a will in “it. This will decreed that Jimmie should marry a woman of his guardian’s choice. Jimmie could not see it and had a way of running off with an actress for Atlantic City weekends. Thereby he nearly lost a fabulous fortune. There are audiences who will eat it up and some who will not touch it. It has wild oats in it.

The Garden of Eden. High were the hopes that carried first nighters to this imported mockery. The play had been a mad success in Germany; had been adapted for the local trade by facile A very Hopwood;* was reputedly risque (the cynic likes a bawdy joke as well as do the home folks); and had been proposed for various famed actresses (Jeanne Eagels, et al). Miram Hopkins† finally got the part and did well enough with it; probably better than the part deserved For the play was pale. To be sure Miss Hopkins was called upon to disrobe almost constantly; but that sort of thing can go only so far. She played the part of a music hall dancer who contrived to get herself adopted by a Baroness in order to marry a wealthy English youth. Five minutes before the wedding the youth, learning all, is distraught with her deceit. Furious at the collapse of his true love she rips off her wedding dress and flees the gathering, just as the guest of honor a stuffy, haughty prince, sweeps majestically upon the scene. This may sound pretty palpitating, but one must listen to a lot of sluggish stuff before the climax.

Speakeasy. The frantic urge to tell of horrors in drink dens of Manhattan has infected no less a dramatist than Edward Knoblock. Mr. Knoblock has to his credit such dramas as Milestones, with Arnold Bennett as coauthor, Kismet, Marie-Odile. Not so decidedly to his credit is this new play Speakeasy. He wrote it in collaboration with one George Rosener, sometimes an actor in musical shows. Together they evolved the tale of going, going, going, but not quite gone wrong young woman. The heroine’s enemy is a wicked crook; her savior, a stainless Princeton youth who slays the enemy. The play is sordid, the cast plenty good enough.

The Shannons of Broadway. Not so many seasons ago James Gleason and his wife, Lucille Webster, were unknown except to stock and vaudeville audiences. Then one night Mr. Gleason appeared in a piece of his own co-authorship called Is Zat So? From that day to this his name has been among the notables. Meanwhile, Mrs. Gleason was swaggering, noisy and caustic, through Merton of the Movies and The Butter and Egg Man. Now the family (with the exception of a sophomore son at University of California) have pooled potentialities and are appearing in a play written, directed and acted chiefly by the house of Gleason. Like the memorable Is Zat So?, this new play can selom be confused with Art. It is frank and fertile; filled with incessant, lifesize laughter. It tells of two vaudeville strollers who buy a small town hotel and mingle intrepidly with the lives of the peasants. Both Mr. Gleason and Miss Webster are unfailingly ribald, and the evening is made more so by the shrewd performance of an unknown, one Harry Tyler, as the broken-down vaudeville hoofer.

The Merry Malones. What Schlitz beer did for Milwaukee, George M. Cohan has done for the American flag. He has done much the same thing for Irish households, soft-shoe dancing and mother. All these things dipped in good jokes and not very good music make up a musical comedy called The Merry Malones. Mr. Cohan syrups the situation with a romance of the son of a billionaire who becomes temporarily a soda fountain clerk in order to woo a poor Irish maiden. He pokes fun at his own plot shamelessly for folk in the good seats, and interrupts it incessantly with sentimental love ballads for the masses in the gallery. All this is done with ineffable geniality and unceasing speed. Folksy customers will love it; firm-minded moderns will squirm. Mr. Cohan himself appears; acts a little, sings a little, does a little dance.

Black Velvet. This title is descriptive of skin pigments in blackamoors, the play descriptive of events surrounding the liason of a nice white boy with a jaunty yellow girl. It intends to describe a changing era in the South. The central figure is a bewildered Southern gentleman with whiskers, who finds that the Negroes no longer obey him; that reverence and elegance play little part in modern industrial life. These various factors are knit into an uneven play which kills four people (three offstage) every evening. Arthur Byron,* usually urbane and neatly pressed, does well with the bewhiskered ancient.

The Uninvited Guest. Every now and then a mountain play just has to come in to relieve some playwright’s mind of the discovery that simple folk suffer strenuously. This is one about a young wife, an ancient crabbed husband, a philandering preacher. The arrival of a baby not the husband’s proves troublesome.

The New York Herald Tribune: “. . . An artless playwright who has read Desire Under the Elms with admiration, but with little profit.”

* Ed Wynn’s Carnival, The Perfect Fool The Grab Bag.

† A onetime vaudeville & revue dancer, George White is now famed as the producer of his annually gorgeous Scandals.

** Vodvil term, not deprecatory, meaning dancer.

†† Aren’t We All?, The Green Hat, Her Cardboard Lover.

* Fair and Warmer, The Gold Diggers, The Bat, Why Men Leave Home.

† Little Jessie James, Tommy.

* The Boomerang, Tea for Three. During the past year he has been on the road with his daughter, Kate, who makes her Manhattan debut in this play, in order to give her more experience.