New Play in Manhattan

The World We Make (adapted by Sidney Kingsley from Millen Brand's novel The Outward Room). The author of Men in White and Dead End has all the earmarks of a realistic dramatist. He deals with "serious" material--the life of hospitals, steam laundries, slums. The audience actually sees the steam and can almost smell the ether; the plays are sprinkled with science, psychiatry, economic awareness, social thinking. But Kingsley exploits realism without achieving reality. Possessing far more of a theatre sense than either a mind or an imagination, he seeks to be effective rather than convincing, to get a point across rather than to be sure his point is sound. His "realistic" plays are often lurid, sentimental, false, are best described (for all their grime and grimness) as picturesque. Less successful dramatically than Men in White and Dead End, The World We Make is much the same kind of playwriting. Story of a girl (Margo) whom an unhappy home life has turned into a psychopathic case, it traces her gradual recovery through contact with simple tenement folk and a love affair with a laundry worker (Herbert Rudley).

As a case history, The World We Make is unilluminating, becomes suspect right at the start, when a stage psychiatrist handles the unhappy girl in a fashion to make a real psychiatrist raise his eyebrows.

Simply as a love story, The World We Make gets as much suspense out of the girl's neuroses as is usually obtained from an irate parent or a mysterious past. To show the healing touch of common humanity, Playwright Kingsley introduces some sure-fire tenement types : a lovable old Pole out of a job, a nervous young husband whose wife is going to have a baby, a jovial Italian with a dog. Kingsley's idea of common humanity is apparently a hand ful of ingratiating bit parts.

Best Bets on Broadway Life with Father. Gay, sometimes hilarious saga of a rambunctious pater familias during Manhattan's horsecar era (TIME, Nov. 20).

Margin for Error. Clare Boothe's lively anti-Nazi melodrama spiced with satirical wisecracks (TIME, Nov. 13).

The Time of Your Life. William Saroyan's tender, boozy picture of life in a waterfront honky-tonk (TIME, Nov. 6).

The Man Who Came to Dinner. Kaufman & Hart's very unflattering but very funny take-off on Alexander Woollcott (TIME, Oct. 30).

Too Many Girls. Musicomedy of college life with plenty of George Abbott liveliness, plenty of Rodgers & Hart lilt (TIME, Oct. 30).

Ladies and Gentlemen. Helen Hayes excellent in a poor show (TIME, Oct. 30).

Skylark. Gertrude Lawrence ditto (TIME, Oct. 23).

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