New Plays in Manhattan

Five Star Final is this season's newspaper play. But, unlike its more cynical predecessors, it is an earnest paean of hate directed against tabloid journalism. By the middle of Act II the abuse has become so boundless that it is flogging a dead horse.

The New York Evening Gazette, a publication which could not value circulation more loved it not honor less, has decided to run the story of Nancy Voorhees, who was acquitted 20 years prior for murdering a man who tried to abandon her. As managing editor, it is the task of terse, authoritative Arthur Byron (The Criminal Code; One, Two, Three!) to have Nancy Voorhees sought out, to find what has happened to her. to point an unctuous moral for his readers. It so happens that news of the story breaks on the day that Nancy's pretty but illegitimate daughter is to be married. Griefstricken, Nancy and the worthy man who has married her despite her shame, commit suicide.

Throughout these kinetic happenings (the play uses three revolving stages, 27 scenes) Editor Byron joins Playwright Louis Weitzenkorn in excoriating his profession, justifying his actions on the grounds that "idealism won't put a patch on your pants. I'm one newspaperman who's going to have a comfortable old age." But when he learns of the tragedy his paper has wrought, he tells his publisher what he thinks of him, stalks out of the office with a bitter laugh at himself.

Some of the lines in Five Star Final are unbelievably bad. At one point two colored characters engage in such minstrel show chatter as: "What am a suicide pact?" And a bogus air enters during the scenes in which disillusioned reporters tell each other their troubles. The play has undeniable vitality, however, and provides a good deal of technical information on the inner workings of a gum-chewer sheetlet. Arthur Byron is masterful, makes completely credible the part of a tough, dogged newsman.

Midnight. Last week Theatre Guild subscribers filed reverently through the Guild Theatre's handsome lobby, up the stairs past the bust of George Bernard Shaw and bumped right into a murder melodrama. For Midnight relates the tale of a law-abiding florist (Frederick Perry) who, as foreman of a jury, has sent a woman to the electric chair for killing a man. At the execution, Midnight, while newshawks are invading his home on one pretext or another to catch his reaction, the florist's daughter (Linda Watkins of June Moon) staggers in with a revolver and the tale that she has just shot her lover.

Thereupon the florist's ideas undergo a complete metamorphosis on the subject of capital punishment. He does everything he can to save his child. But Miss Watkins would undoubtedly go to the chair were it not for some impudent but sage political advice which Mr. Glenn Anders (Hotel Universe), as a newspaper reporter, breathes into the ear of the district attorney.

Had Midnight 'any pretense toward dramatic excellence, it would naturally depend on balancing the two similar crimes. But the murder committed by the executed woman is handled with far more clarity than the killing of Miss Watkins' vague boy friend.

Meet My Sister is a strange, agreeable little novelty imported from Germany by those tireless patrons of alien drama, the Brothers Shubert. It is a musical play, a farce pleasantly interrupted from time to time by singing. Its prelude is in a divorce court. There Eric Molinar (Walter Slezak) is seeking separation from his wife Dolly (Bettina Hall). To clarify the issues to both court and audience a two-act fade-back ensues. Mr. Slezak is seen as an impoverished pedagog cataloging rich Miss Hall's library. So timid is he before her advances that in the next scene she impersonates a mythical sister who works in a shoe shop, deceives and wins simple Mr. Slezak. When he detects the fraud he demands his freedom, which shunts the play back into the divorce court where, with a little burst of song, the evening's entertainment concludes happily. Best tune: "My Ideal."

Queen At Home. John Henry Mears's record as a round-the-world tripper (23 days, 15 hr. 21 min. in 1928) is a great deal more impressive than his feats as an impresario (Brothers, The Nut Farm). Queen At Home, his latest production, is; a thin, folksy drama about an actress (Sylvia Field) who supports a crowd of sponging relatives at Teaneck, N. J. She likewise has a worthless husband and an ardent suitor who designs theatrical scenery and goes about without his cravat a good deal. Miss Field would probably have been imposed upon forever were it not for her sharp-tongued girl-friend who finally persuades the actress to rid herself of the burdensome kinsfolk, marry the scenic painter.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.