New Plays in Manhattan

Earl Carroll's Sketch Book. Early in this gaudy cycle there occurs a sound cinema of Comedian Eddie Cantor, who wrote the libretto, singing a song of his own devising called "Legs, Legs, Legs." Thereafter a large and lovely group of girls attired in summery yellow dresses crowd out upon the stage, lie on their backs on an imitation grass terrace, raise their legs high in the air and wave them slowly to & fro. This revel sets the pitch for the rest of the entertainment, which fulfills every standard--anatomical, luxurious, careless--that is associated with Producer Carroll. There is even a bath-tub interlude. Prominent among the personalities is Will Mahoney, a vaudeville Celt who clogs swiftly and loudly and takes terrific tumbles which are funny because he, as well as the audience, feels them coming long before they happen. Mr. Mahoney also smears part of his face with lampblack and burlesques Mammy songs in a way which should, but probably will not, eliminate them as legitimate amusement. Ray Kavanaugh's orchestra, which helps to promote such fetching tunes as "Song of the Moonbeams" and "Kinda Cute," not only rises mechanically from the pit, but moves slowly back across the stage and is ultimately hoisted high in air to accompany a hectic first act finale.

Producer Carroll says his Sketch Book will be an annual.

Bed-Fellows is a farce which might be enjoyed in remote farming sections where boredom sometimes inspires families to exchange husbands and wives. That is the plot of Bed-Fellows. The switch is legally accomplished, but the play's title is, of course, never realized. Such things may happen but you cannot stage them. After much raucous effort at humor and suspense, Bed-Fellows ends where it began, without a single inventive fillip to distinguish it from a score of other mediocrities.

Show Girl. Dixie Dugan lived in dingiest Brooklyn. Light of foot and heart, she obtained an interview with the great Producer Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. by telling him she bore a message from his wife. It was not long before Dixie danced in the Follies. She was loved by a greeting card salesman who quoted his sentiments from his wares. She was desired by a swart tangoist. There was a penthousebroken aristocrat who tried to seduce her. Ultimately she was won by Jimmy Doyle, newsgatherer and Follies librettist.

Thus ran the story which J. P. McEvoy energized with Broadway chatter in his novel Show Girl (1928). And thus runs the plot of the musical show which Producer Ziegfeld, as Writer McEvoy had planned, has energized with girls, Gershwin tunes, and spillings from the largest cornucopia of talent in the girl-show business.

Dixie Dugan is played by pert, agile Ruby Keeler ("Mrs. Al") Jolson, whose reedy little voice blends naturally with familiar Broadway trebles. On the stage she is almost lost in the magnificence of scenes conceived by Joseph Urban, court painter to Producer Ziegfeld.

Best of the new Gershwiniana are "Liza" and "So Are You"; most ambitious is the new Gershwin ballet, "An American in Paris." The latter, embellished by the grace of Danseuse Harriet Hoctor, is marred by patriotic excitement at the finish in which a picture of President Hoover is momentarily expected to appear. Chief motif of the music is the shrill bark of Paris taxicab horns.

Part of Producer Ziegfeld's policy has always been to stimulate with hints of fine talent rather than satiate with too much. Thus only twice does he allow smooth-voiced Nick Lucas to stroll to the footlights and strum on his light guitar. But with happy frequency there does reappear a property man, impersonated by Jimmie Durante (pronounce the final e), who is one of the funniest things that ever happened in Manhattan. Night-club experts have been Durante-conscious for many a season. He is a tousled, electric fellow whose frothing utterances combine lunacy with bad grammar. His nose ("Schnoz-zola") puts Cyrano's to shame. His history includes private entertaining in his father's barber shop and at East Side parties and weddings; public appearances in Harlem, at Coney Island, circuit vaudeville. He suggests them all. He sings his old songs for his new public, including "So I Ups to Him," "I Can Do Without Broadway (But Can Broadway Do Without Me?)," "Shades, Yellow Shades for the Window" and "Who Will Be With You When I'm Far Away (Far Out in Far Rockaway) ?"

The Durante partners are Lou Clayton, lean-jawed dancer, and Eddie Jackson, moon-faced strutter. The three are as inseparable offstage as on. Like most baroque structures, Show Girl inclines at intervals to be burdensome. Clayton, Jackson & Durante are chiefly responsible for getting it often and uproariously agog.