New Plays in Manhattan

Zombie, Mr. William Seabrook's romantic fibs about far-off places do no one any harm, have certainly not harmed Zombie, whose playwright (Kenneth Webb) seems to have read Author Seabrook's The Magic Island. Haitian zombies are those unfortunate people who have been resurrected from the grave and placed in peonage by villainous masters. With one of these voodooistic overlords a family of white planters comes in contact, thus giving Zombie its motivation. For the most part wretchedly acted (including the work of Miss Pauline Starke, deep-voiced onetime film actress) and beset with deplorably written dialog, Zombie has at least four authentic shudders for your spine, to wit:

1) When the shrouded grave-folk first appear.

2) When one of them is released from half-life to total death by spell and incantation.

3) When Actress Starke discovers that her husband has become a zombie.

4) When the zombies grope their way toward their master, who is in peril.

Monkey, Seldom is anyone killed in a mystery play whom the audience would care to have live. When Banker Kenmore of Monkey is shot his demise not only removes one more objectionable character from the world of fiction, but considerably enlivens a play. For Banker Kenmore was a vicious old rascal who sent his wife to an asylum, tried to blight his daughter's romance, kept a mistress. His death brings to the stage an extremely agreeable detective named "Monkey" Henderson, an eccentric police officer whose physique and peculiar actions have earned him his sobriquet on the force. Performed by Richard Whorf, "Monkey" Henderson is a refreshingly new type among stage sleuths. His criminological methods are a succession of humorous short cuts, and he is bent on saving the audience's time and the taxpayer's money. The conclusion of Monkey is surprising enough, and the late Sam Janney has managed to interlard his melodrama with agreeable comedy.. Officer McSweeney, played by Edward McNamara. the constable of Strictly Dishonorable who said that it just seemed like police-men never took a drink, ably supports Actor Whorf.

The Fatal Alibi. Two murder plays within a week (see above), both of which are commendable, is by way of being news on Broadway. The Fatal Alibi, from Agatha Christie's Murder of Roger Ackroyd, which ends with the narrator's last-chapter confession, is not as funny as Monkey, but more logical. Engaged to solve this crime is Actor Charles Laughton, who made this season's grim Payment Deferred almost too real. This time Mr. Laughton is cast as the famed French operative Hercule Poirot. His accent is good, his mumming of characteristic meticulousness. Either Author Christie or Reviser John Anderson, capable theatre critic of the New York Journal, has supplied one crowning touch of veracity to the French mastermind's lines. He never becomes sufficiently acquainted with De Brett's Peerage to learn that Sir Roger, the murderee, is not called Sir Ackroyd. The Fatal Alibi is wan in spots, but the last act hits a happy clip. Only the audience, the murderer, Sir Roger and Hercule Poirot can guess the solution of the crime.

Blessed Event Alvin Robert (Roger Pryor of Up Pops the Devil) was wasting his journalistic fragrance on the desert air of the New York Daily Express' advertising department. When the regular Broadway colyumist went on a vacation, Mr. Roberts was given a chance to pinch hit for him. This he did largely by printing premature birth notices about the offspring of people of prominence and notoriety, thus upping his tabloid's circulation by several thousand copies. The end of Blessed Event's first act, therefore, finds Mr. Roberts holding down the dirt dishing department permanently at $50 a week.

Act II, one year later, reveals Mr. Roberts feverishly telling all and reaping much richer reward. It also introduces a visitor from Chicago who is planning to make $2,000 by shooting Mr. Roberts for a Mr. Sam Gobel, whom certain of the colyum's items have offended, notably one which observed that the beer in one of the Gobel saloons looked out of place in a stein. Gallant Alvin Roberts, far from quaking at the gunman's proposal to kill him, exhibits a photograph of the late Murderess Ruth Snyder in the electric chair and mentions the twisted fingers, the binding straps, the burning hair which accompany an electrocution. He also reveals that the gunman's threat has been dictaphoned.

But Mr. Roberts' troubles are not over. One young woman whom he tattles on has been wronged by Sam Gobel himself. When Colyumist Roberts intrudes on a night club opening, from which he has been barred, Sam Gobel directs two of his mermydons to finish the task that his first emissary failed to accomplish. It is in this, the play's last act, that Blessed Event cinches its claim to first rate melodrama.

Walter Winchell of the Daily Mirror, after whom Blessed Event's fearless though imprudent hero is modeled, was present on the first night accompanied by a bodyguard, a precaution he has taken since he recorded the recent arrival of several Chicago bravos in Manhattan.

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