The Best Plays

These are the plays which, in the light of metropolitan criticism, seem most important:

Drama

WHITE CARGO--Wherein morals dry up under the blazing sun of Africa and the white man finds a native solution to the problem of loneliness.

THEY KNEW WHAT THEY WANTED --Pauline Lord performs a miracle of acting as the poor waitress who married a farmer by mail and could not resist his farmhand. , WHAT PRICE GLORY?--The most enduring portrait of all the many painted of wine, women and war on the Western Front.

DESIRE UNDER THE ELMS--Eugene O'Neill's cruel realities displayed (this time as on a lonely New England farm) for the sophisticated.

OLD ENGLISH--A wabbly play of Galsworthy's shored up into sound entertainment by the extraordinary performance of George Arliss.

PROCESSIONAL--The last week of this peculiar experiment in expressionism. Murder, hunger and rape set to a strange jazz rhythm.

THE WILD DUCK--One of the modern masterpieces receives full meed of excellent acting. It proves the futility of idealism.

THE DOVE--Excitement and stilettos below the Mexican Border. Expert Belasco molding of cheap materials.

Comedy

THE SHOW-OFF--The ballyhoo man for himself takes the stand and talks incessantly through a highly entertaining evening.

PIGS--A thin and amiable tale of young people on a farm, their fortune, their artless love affair.

THE FIREBRAND--Benvenuto Cellini has a rowdy evening with a duchess.

THE FALL GUY--The little man whom everybody kicks around finally puts his own right foot firmly forward.

THE GUARDSMAN--Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne brilliantly cast as an actor and an actress who doubt each other's fidelity.

Is ZAT So?--Slang and uppercuts most amusingly mixed in a story of two prizefighters who stumbled into society.

Musical

Selections for the week in the song-and-dance handicap are: The Music Box, Zicgfeld Follies, The Student Prince, Rose-Marie, Lady, Be Good.