Best Plays in Manhattan

These are the plays which, in the light of metropolitan criticism, seem most important.

SERIOUS

COQUETTE--Helen Hayes uncannily excellent as a southern belle, careless with the love of others; destroyed by her own. (TIME, Nov. 21.)

PORGY--A Negro troupe giving the turbulent details of love, terror, and swift laughter of native life along the Charleston docks. (TIME, Oct. 24.)

Max Reinhardt's Season--Sovereign importations from Central Europe for those who can surmount the barrier of the German language. (TIME, Nov. 28, et seq.)

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

MELODRAMA

BROADWAY--The oldest entertainment consecutively at home in Manhattan. Dancers, thugs, guns. (TIME, Sept. 27, 1926.)

THE TRIAL OF MARY DUGAN--In which a beautiful chorus girl tensely, tearfully tells the story of her life. (TIME, Oct. 3.)

INTERFERENCE--A very nice English family is suspected of a very effective murder. (TIME, Oct. 31.)

Other able melodramas: THE RACKET, DRACULA, NIGHTSTICK.

FUNNY

THE TAMING OF THE SHREW--An impudent inculcation of William Shakespeare with boisterous modernism. (TIME, Nov. 7.)

BURLESQUE--How love came to a drunken burlesque comedian. (TIME, Sept. 12.)

THE ROYAL FAMILY--Peeking between the bars at a large family of none-too-tame actors and actresses. (TIME, Jan. 9.)

THE COMMAND TO LOVE--One of those things about European diplomats who have more than one love to give for their country. (TIME, Oct. 3.)

THE DOCTOR'S DILEMMA--The Theatre Guild reviving Bernard Shaw's doctor baiting. Alternate weeks. (TIME, Dec. 5.)

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

MUSICAL

Brightest and best: SHOW BOAT, FUNNY FACE, HIT THE DECK, MANHATTAN MARY, A CONNECTICUT YANKEE. GOOD NEWS.