Old Play in Manhattan

The Play's the Thing (adapted from the Hungarian of Ferenc Molnar by P. G. Wodehouse; produced by Gilbert Miller, in association with James Russo and Michael Ellis) first reached Broadway--when Molnar was the thing--in the mid-'20s. A successful trifle then, it may easily prove a successful trifle now. If it spends most of its time winking at the audience, if without managing to be a play at all it presumes to offer a play within a play, its suavity saves it. It has that light touch which for so long, with Molnar, proved a Midas touch.

The yarn's hero is a Molnaresque playwright. Its presumable moral: when it comes to finding a happy ending for a sorry mess, only a playwright will do. The playwright's young godson is engaged to a beautiful prima donna. Late one night, godfather and godson overhear the lady, through thin walls, in a vocal and vigorous love scene with an actor. While the godson threatens suicide, the godfather hits on how to save the day: the guilty lovers had really been rehearsing--a play which has still to be written.

The run-through of that play, once the godfather writes it, gives Molnar's own a spirited last act. Earlier, The Play's the Thing is by no means always spirited: the lines are witty enough, but the story is all too frequently becalmed. The production, however, is well managed throughout. Louis Calhern (Jacobowsky and the Colonel) acts the playwright with sophistication and style; Arthur Margetson plays the trapped actor with humor. As the prima donna, Faye Emerson always scores with her looks, not always with her lines.

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