New Plays

Juarez and Maximilian. History mentions one Maximilian, a Habsburg, appointed Emperor of Mexico by Napoleon Bonaparte; records a successful revolution led by Juarez, the untimely defection of Napoleon's troops, execution of Maximilian. More colorful chronicles relate that Maximilian's proud empress, failing to obtain aid from royal kin in Europe, became insane, another victim of the "curse of the Habsburgs," which has bloodied every generation of that ill-starred line with murder and violence.

Franz Werfel, author of the Goat Song (TIME, Feb. 8), sees in Maximilian the representative of a humane, idealistic principle of government. He would, with kindness, mold superstitious peasants, renegades into a nation. Napoleonic ruthlessness he forbids. Opposed to him looms the sinister Juarez, man of implacable power, one who "has never had a dream." The native leader, never brought upon the stage, is constantly felt to be the spirit that directs deadly forces against the wavering royalist's policy. Betrayed, deserted, defeated by himself, Maximilian goes to his doom, a failure in living for his cause, but strong in dying for it. All this is presented against a series of 13 scenes, done in the Guild's most lavish manner, peopled by a long list of characters, interpreted by the Guild's best talent: Alfred Lunt, Clare Eames, Dudley

Digges, Margalo Gillmore, Edward Robinson. Wrote the critics: "Herr Werfel did well to discard the technique of shadowy symbolism employed in the Goat Song. The audience responded only halfheartedly to a superb production."

An American Tragedy. Horace Liveright, who dared to produce Shakespeare in modern clothes, (TIME, Nov. 23) dares to translate Theodore Dreiser's bulky volumes into lean terms of theatre. A stark tragedy he presents, one that catapults relentlessly to fearful doom, dismisses its audience terrified, saddened, bewildered.

The numerous scenes pitch through so many scattered periods of Clyde Griffiths' life that one is given the impression of snatchy revelations, skipped pages. Yet Patrick Kearney preserves with such care the causal sequence of the story that Mr. Dreiser's tragic skeleton, at least, is reproduced in true proportions. Morgan Farley throws himself wholeheartedly into the role of Clyde Griffiths, a poor boy who suffers the hard loneliness of being just beyond the pale of all for which he yearns. Unexpectedly, he discovers in Sondra Finchley, beautiful heiress, a sweetheart who will fulfill his dearest, vainest dreams. But in the poor factory girl, Roberta Alden, he has already set up a barrier to marriage with Sondra--the result of a lonely, passionate, summer romance. Too sensitive to break with Roberta, top weak to give up Sondra, he is driven in desperation to focus upon a murderous thought. From the actual deed itself, he recoils. But he has proceeded so far in his feverish plans that the tide of circumstance sweeps him on. An overturned rowboat, a camera used as a bludgeon, and Roberta drowns, perhaps murdered. The Law bays and quarters. A ghastly courtroom inquisition, a horrible, nerve-wracking, death-cell nightmare, write the final chapter of a well-written, well-acted, well-produced, authentic tragedy.

They All Want Something. Again popular William T. ("Bill") Tilden lays aside his whanging racquet. Though he is more graceful than last year, he is not yet viewed with alarm by Broadway's first 20 ranking actors. As family chauffeur, Wade Rawlins (Mr. Tilden) keeps tabs on father's, brother's, sister's peccadillos, so that at the most embarrassing moment he is able to drive off the blackmailers who threaten the socially unstable new-rich. Later he blossoms forth a most satisfactory candidate for the daughter's hand, especially since he is not of such lowly station as one might have been led to believe.

Rain. After four years of Rain, Jeanne Eagels pours forth the dismal woes of Sadie Thompson in a last two-week stand at the Century Theatre. Somerset Maugham's story, made into one of the most successful plays in recent years, tells of a jaywalking girl from Honolulu and a fanatical, suppressed missionary who meet on a South Sea island. Miss Eagels, after some fourteen hundred performances has, to all intents and purposes, become Sadie Thompson. Actors, producers, public thundered her a tremendous ovation.

Buy, Buy Baby.--How to beget a child in time to benefit from a rich relative's will is the problem. Although no one in the audience seemed to care very much, the poor but deserving, secretly married couple had another secret in reserve all the while.