New Plays

The Importance of Being Earnest. Oscar Wilde is probably the least played of all the important dramatists* of the '90s. It is believed by shrewd financiers of the theatre that epigrams will not keep. These men are right, as usual, from a financial viewpoint. It is doubtful whether the engaging and lancelike humors of this piece will interest a great many people for a protracted period. On the other hand, the production seems one of the very few this season that the true lover of the theatre cannot afford to miss.

Wilde is a playwright exceedingly sensitive to production. The Actors' Theatre has done amazingly well by him this time and the results are most diverting. Lucille Watson, Patricia Collinge, Reginald Owen, Vernon Steele and Dudley Digges were shrewd selections for the various delicately incisive roles. Strangely enough even the epigrams seem to have survived sturdily--"The truth is rarely pure and never simple"--"Illness of any kind is hardly a thing to be encouraged in others"--"Whenever people talk to me about the weather I always feel quite certain they mean something else."--"Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone"--"I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train."

The play, as every one knows, is one of the most conversationally glittering that Wilde wrote. The genre is well described in a book* just published which purports to contain spirit messages direct from the author: "My plays were scarcely drama. They were more the weaving of character into a pattern; and this, with the use of language which I chose in each instance, to illustrate the surface of the human being. I did not propose to go deeply into the heart, as it is called--that organ, which is so frequently maligned, did not interest me." In this book Author Wilde also describes his entrance to London, "this huge heap of Philistinism," as a young man: "I felt like a goldfish who was choked from devouring too much bread. ... It seemed a foolish thing to go on living in such a world . . ."

Kitty's Kisses is an unimportant musical comedy with a shattering succession of excellent dance numbers. It has been made over from an old farce which once amused for an inconsiderable period as Little Miss Brown. About half of the original was eliminated to make room for song and dance about a girl who strayed into the wrong hotel bedroom. The music and the foolishness are mostly routine. Dorothy Dilley and a vaudeville team called Wayne and Warren are the most capable performers.

The Sport of Kings. Ian Hay (Beith) is not now so well known as he was during the War. His battle writings roused interest in his novels; his lectures spread the advertisement. Of late he has withdrawn somewhat from the general consciousness. He returns with a chaotic farce about betting on horse races. It is not likely to add to his repute.

Major Beith bases his play on the human weakness which convinces a man or woman that one horse will travel a certain distance in a briefer period than several other horses. Two of his characters are habitues of the tracks; another is a stony old justice of the peace who believes betting sinful. The efforts of the young sportsmen to alter the old man's opinion, plus their efforts to marry young women of his household, compose the play's development. 0. P. Heggie is the leading player, though a relatively obscure actor named Walter Kingsford gives the best performance. The Sport of Kings is only funny now and then.

The Romantic Young Lady. The tiny Neighborhood Playhouse hid den in the slums of Grand Street has again put forth one of the true delights of the theatrical season. They have taken a Spanish comedy, translated by Helen and Harley Granville-Barker, produced in London as long ago as 1920, and brought it to America in as feathery and fascinating a manner as the harshest skeptic could desire.

As the Neighborhood has already done this season The Dybbuk, perhaps the most unusual, artistic and popular piece of the year, its laurels have an imperial amplitude.

The Romantic Young Lady tells, curiously enough, the story of a romantic young lady. She dreams and sees visions after the manner of romantic young ladies. And then one day in at her open window blows the hat of her favorite novelist. The rest of the play concerns itself with her disintegrating illusion in the face of facts in the matter.

Mary Ellis--the erstwhile Rose-Marie, who eschewed light opera for straight acting in The Dybbuk --is blindingly decorative in the lead and unfailingly true to the spirit of her task.

The Servant in the House. The long list of the season's revivals has finally included this old success of 18 years ago. It is a badly dated play about a butler who resembled and is symbolically identified with Christ. The shrewd skeptic of this inquiring day will say that the philosophy is obvious and behind the times. Even the most careless of steady theatre-goers will recognize the flagrant artificiality and the veteran creakiness of the structure. Walter Hampden gives his usual correct and melodious performance.

* Pinero, Henry Arthur Jones, Shaw, Barrie, et al.

* OSCAR WILDE FROM PURGATORY--Hester Travers Smith--Holt ($1.75).