New Plays in Manhattan

The Bachelor Father. "Legitimate" is a phrase used to describe those stage productions which are neither cinemas nor vaudeville acts; it is perhaps paradoxical that legitimate plays have of late shown an increasing tendency to concentrate upon the question of illegitimate children. Plots are hung often upon the query; ''Whose baby are you?" The Bachelor Father was brought to Broadway by David Belasco, who has so frequently been called the dean of Manhattan theatrical producers that he always wears a canonical collar. It deals gently and tenderly with a lovable old libertine who, in his dotage, calls his bastards to him from the ends of the earth that he may be entertained by inspecting the consequences of his sin.

There are, as he thinks, three of these. One, a girl, is a shy little songbird from Italy, whose mother was a reckless diva; one is an impetuous English youth; the third is Antoinette Flagg, a saucy minx from the back alleys of Manhattan. The three of them gather in Sir Basil Winterton's capacious mansion; soon it becomes apparent that they regard their father rather than themselves as the proper object of a critical inspection. Having inspected, they,decide to adopt him, and he, bewildered but delighted, decides to keep his children. But one of them, the English youth, to the great disgust of Sir Basil, turns out to be the son of another father and immediately sets about marrying the opera singer's offspring. To Sir Basil's further chagrin, the U. S. illegitimate, whose coy and daring cajoleries have made her his "favorite little bastard," falls in love with his solicitor; when she has achieved her father's consent to their marriage, she calls the curtain down by prettily observing: "Well, anyway, it will be the first wedding in this family!"

Despite the preoccupations of its plot, this drama is as innocuous and sweet as vanilla ice-cream. June Walker plays the part of Sir Basil's U. S. representative with soft and flexible insouciance. Bred in Chicago, she made her stage debut in the chorus of Hitchy Koo, and has since taken its verbal last syllable for a motto. Often, she coos the most extravagant slang that can be found for her tissue-paper tongue to enwrap. She has done this in Six Cylinder Love, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, The Love Nest.

Marriage on Approval. A year ago the same play, except for minor details, was offered under the simple title Trial Marriage. As it was then, it is now, a too wordy, too self-serious story .of a wistful but determined chit who refused to marry the man she loved until she had tried living with him, and who then, through the machinations of a reedy villain, goes to jail for a shooting instead of to church for a wedding. Sadder and less idiotic, she gets out in time for the last act. The action of the play is ample but is gathered after too many innings of intense conversation. Phyllis Poyah acts it well.

Improvisations in June. Big business men are unpopular with playwrights and U. S. big business men are unpopular with Europeans. In this, the latest addition to the Civic Repertory catalogue, a German playwright, Max Mohr, neglecting the scented graces at which his title hints, amuses himself by tossing medicine balls at the ugly face of a U. S. rooney glutton. His satire, which was immensely successful in Europe, is sophisticated and sentimental; it is probable that even the most hardened plutocrat who watches the unfolding of the myth will feel less shamed than delighted when the young lovers, scorning a rich villain's bribe, exit with laughter and on horseback.

The Wrecker. What a to-do in the offices of the Great Trunk Line! A criminal, a nameless fiend, is, everyone feels almost certain, going to continue his series of express train demolishments by wrecking the night flyer. To the great dismay of the little group waiting around for something to happen, he does just this; then the president of the road, on the point of naming the dastard's name, is shot down by some mysterious hand.

After this, the chase begins in earnest. There is an excellent scene in a signal tower wherein the very arch criminal actually appears, in coy and terrifying disguise, to prove that he can wreck playgoers' nerves as well as express trains. At the end of a somewhat talky mystery play, which will, however, cause the susceptible to shiver, the wrecker makes known his identity and jumps out a window.

Keep Shufflin' is for those who like capering, singing, cuckoo coons. Flourney Miller and Aubrey Lyles, the lazy and fantastic brace of dark comedians who slouched with such comic melancholy through Shuffle Along, are again on hand. They organize the Equal Got League, a millennial society which is even funnier than the Knights of the Green Forest; Mr. Miller is its cunning and listless leader, Mr. Lyles his henchman. There are also more strenuous Bedlamites from Harlem who break into loud melodious ululations; there is a skilful and frantically energetic black and blues orchestra and marty lively tappers and prancers of whom one, name unspecified, brandishes her mahogany limbs with incredibly vicious abandon.