New Plays in Manhattan

Or Man Satan (by Donald Hey wood; Shillwood Productions, Inc., producer) is a Harlem composer's idea of Roark Bradford's idea of a Negro's idea of Biblical history. Playwright Heywood, author of dance tunes for Blackbirds, makes no effort to conceal his attempt to paraphrase super-successful The Green Pastures. Instead of having an old darky and a Sunday school class of pickaninnies to introduce the various scenes of his mystery play, he employs a Negro mammy and her son.

Instead of the central character being God, it is Satan (A. B. Comatheire) in patent leather shoes and a pinchback suit, walking the earth as a natural man.

Actor Comatheire, a Lenox Avenue Lucifer, well fits his part. He brandishes whips, laughs horribly, almost corrupts Sts. Peter, Paul, James & John, almost makes Gabriel (a character strongly reminiscent of The Green Pastures' Gabriel) sound the Last Trump. Discovered in his wickedness, Satan is sent to hell by a microphonic Jehovah, there continues his evil doing. From this point on, 01' Man Satan wallows in confusion, terminates with the cast of 131 lifting their hands in thanksgiving, for what the audience cannot be quite sure.

High point of the performance is a song, "Across the River," composed by the playwright and sung by David (Walter Richardson). If you liked The Green Pastures, 01' Man Satan should remind you in spots of that more profound, more seriously comic predecessor.

Nona (by Gladys Unger; Peggy Fears, producer) is predominantly a feminine endeavor. Written and produced by able ladies, it is carried entirely on the wide, writhing shoulders of a very lively lady, Lenore Ulric.

The play has few pretensions to distinction. A tempestuous and ardent German danseuse (Miss Ulric) is joined on her U. S. tour by a young Philadelphia millionaire who hides his identity from her, agrees not to make love to her if she will take him on as her piano player. Attired for the most part in revealing negligees, Miss Ulric at one moment tries to seduce him with the familiar Ulric twistings and oglings, at the next moment wards him off with her rasping voice. The struggle ends in a Rocky Mountain blizzard which has marooned the dancer's private car.

Americana (Joseph Patrick McEvoy, librettist; Lee Shubert. producer) is dedicated this year, "with special permission of the copyright owner Frank D. Roosevelt," to the Forgotten Man. The Forgotten Man himself, a nondescript in an ill-fitting suit, wearing an undersized brown derby, is presented in the flesh. He is impersonated by foolish-faced Don Barclay, who rises to sing about himself in the opening scene: With hope in his chest And an egg on his "vest-- With pride in his glance And a shine on his pants-- Uncle Sam needs a man who can take it! Comedian Barclay has little to do throughout the performance save appear stupid, but Rex Weber and Impersonator Albert Carroll are called upon often and not in vain. Mr. Weber vastly amuses his audience by prodigious feats of ventriloquism, then turns serious and leads a band of breadline tatterdemalions in a genuinely stirring ballad called "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" Mr. Carroll is at various times a spiritual medium, Lynn Fontanne, James John Walker.

As the medium he is requested by a banker to ask the late great John Pierpont Morgan what he thinks about the Moratorium. "Don't know anything about it," replies the shade of Mr. Morgan. "You better take the Berengaria." Mr. Carroll excites whoops of enjoyment from spectators aware of the city's political situation with a Jimmy Walker song ending: You can have your City Hall, I'll take A. C. Blumenthal.

Let me match my private life with yours.

Other items on Americana's bill which you will probably like: the Doris Humphrey Dance Group's wave dance, in which 14 girls leap, slide, fall forward and backward, accompanied only by a cymbal and the swish of their bodies against a slick blue floor; the same girls in an or- giastic interpretation of an oldtime Shaker meeting; a marionet show in which Alfred Emanuel Smith, Herbert Hoover and John Davison Rockefeller jig together with a chorus of little oil cans. Tunes: "Wouldja for a Big Red Apple?", "You're Not Pretty But You're Mine," "Satan's Little Lamb." When Ladies Meet (by Rachel Croth- ers; John Golden, producer). Everything Mary Howard (Frieda Inescort) did bore the hallmark of success. Her novels sold, the ivy on her Manhattan terrace grew, her life and friends operated efficiently. Yet she was lonely. Her closest male companion, an easy-going Philip Barry character named Jimmy (Walter Abel), adored her in an embarrassed, tail-wagging sort of way. Mary wanted more.

"Are you capable of a great passion, Jimmy?" she asked.

"God, I hope not," he replied.

But Mary does find someone who appears capable, her publisher. The fact that he already has a perfectly good wife and two children deters neither of them. Mary will go to his wife, talk things over sensibly, prove that the husband should be released. It will all be very logical, very civilized. But the wife (Selena Royle) and Mary do not meet under such well-ordered conditions. The interview turns into a scene. In the end neither woman wants the publisher and Mary is last seen considerably dazed but with faithful Jimmy's head resting on her knees.

Capable Playwright Crothers has cross-stitched her problem drama with pure comedy. Brightest moments of the play occur when Mary's rich, flibberty-gibbet friend Bridget (Spring Byington) is permitted to loosen her tactless but well-meaning tongue. "I know how you feel, Mary," she says consolingly. "It used to make me feel so badly when my husband went off and left me. I didn't feel half so sad when he died. I knew where he was."

Between flighty Actress Byington, breathlessly restrained Actress Inescort and ingratiating Mr. Abel, the extremely professional Crothers script should be a source of pleasure to playgoers for months to come.

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