New Plays in Manhattan

Berkeley Square is a dignified and cerebral romance based on the Bergsonian-Einsteinian notion of Time, which hints that past, present and future are illusory, that the impression of fleeting moments, hours and years is not to be trusted. Suggested by Henry James's Sense of the Past, written by John L. Balderston, London correspondent of the New York World, it comes, like so many plays this season, from London. The story is of Peter Standish, young U. S. citizen living in his ancestral London townhouse, who likes the 20th Century so well that he suddenly finds himself back in it in the person of his great-great-grandfather. But while he has the visage of this distant sire, he retains his own 20th Century consciousness, which makes for much discomfort and disappointment.

The periwigged gallants, for instance, have crude methods of bathing. The great lexicographer Samuel Johnson, whom Peter meets, only "thunders out a few platitudes." And when Peter absentmindedly reaches for a cigaret he finds only a miniature cabinet. On the other hand, he creates a reputation for brilliance simply by using, as though they were his own, remarks from Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address" and "some cheap epigrams by a fellow named Oscar Wilde."

His companions, astonished by his strange foreknowledge of events, come to regard him as a sort of unholy ghost. The girl whom he knows his ancestor did marry turns away from him in fear and, tragically, he finds himself falling in love with her sister. This affair is ill-fated even though the lovely Helen knows of Peter's long journey through the years and, like him, perceives that the veils of Time are thin. She is unwilling to see him suffer in an age ill-adapted to his experience, so back he goes to his own century to fondle Helen's memento, still preserved in the old house, and to ponder her epitaph while his 20th Century fiancee leaves him, both of them disconsolate.

Punctilious, sensitive Leslie Howard strikes a proper balance between the comic and serious aspects of Peter's career. Margalo Gillmore, late of the Theatre Guild, is his wide-eyed partner in supertemporal romance. These two extract fine philosophical nuance as well as fantasy from their curious roles. All three acts are laid in a Queen Anne drawing room, magnificently rendered by Sir Edwin Lutyens, famed British architect (TIME, Aug. 12), containing an easel originally owned by Sir Joshua Reynolds.

Heywood Broun in the New York Telegram: "I can think of nothing in several seasons which has moved me so much. . . . If you plan to see only one play this year go to Berkeley Square. If your budget provides two evenings in the theatre see it twice."

Bitter Sweet. Sated with brassy music, near-nudes and ribaldry, Manhattan theatregoers were ready for this so-called "operette" composed and directed by London's smart, versatile Noel Coward. It celebrates the courteous romances and recreations of the era which heard the manifold swishing of Queen Victoria's skirts, a sound not out of key with this winter's fashions.

The Marchioness of Shayne, old enough to wear cameos to good advantage, approves a dancing party at her mansion for their ignorance of romance. One of the young ladies present is in love with the pianist of the jazz orchestra, which prompts the Marchioness to tell the story of her past. You then see blushful Sarah Millick, betrothed to a ninny of the '80s but trembling beneath her bustle for her Viennese singing master. Bumping into him in a game of blind man's buff, she considers it a happy portent and they elope to Vienna. He fiddles in an ornate cafe lit with countless gas globes like permanent bubbles. She is coveted by one of the military gentry who, having been slapped in the face by her husband, slays that faithful fellow in a duel. Years later Sarah returns to her native London, a cosmopolitan soprano, to sing Noel Coward's catchiest songs--"Zigeuner" and "Ill See You Again"--before an aristocratic gathering and to give her experienced hand to the elderly but ever so compelling Marquis of Shayne.

Faced with this nostalgic tale, Manhattan's drama reviewers might have kept their composure had it not been for the prima donna, Evelyn Laye. Her almost constant presence on the stage made them forget the slow pace of the proceedings. They heard her 'full, sweet voice rather than the pale, undistinguished music. They peered at her rather than at a chorus which was downright homely. A slim, yellow-ringleted girl who, in the period represented, would have been judged too delicate for bicycling, she was inspected by hard-boiled eyes which had forgotten about such porcelain femininity.

Among Bitter Sweet's pleasant auxiliaries are female and male quartets. The former sings Mr. Coward's satirical ditty "Ladies of the Town." The male quartet performs a subtle parody on Oscar Wilde and his languid legionaries.

Evelyn Laye went to Folkestone College, England, was thereafter a London chorus girl and heroine of the horrific Mr. Wu. She sang the lead in the British production of Mary, scored again in a revival of Lehar's The Merry Widow and in Madame Pompadour. She is now on her first visit to the U. S. Loud as was her reception, it was no louder than that accorded to U. S. Prima Donna Peggy Wood who sang the same role when Bitter Sweet opened in London last July. Ladies in Peggy Wood's audience tore off and flung to her their corsage bouquets.

Cortez. Lionel Atwill and William Faversham, both historic stage wooers, have already this season displayed their best cavalier postures in plays productive of little else (TIME, Oct. 21, Nov. 4). They are now followed by Lou Tellegen, an actor of bearing as lordly as befits a onetime leading man of Sarah Bernhardt and Eleanora Duse. As a bandit--descendant of the wildly surmising explorer Cor-tez--he descends upon a cinema company taking pictures in the Mexican mountains. To his castle on the crags he carries the stately leading lady (Helen Baxter) and numerous others, including a cameraman's little fiancee (Dorothea Chard), who is thus far the season's most piquant and delectable brunette. The blonde so beguiles Cortez that his Castilian nobility prompts him to propose. Then she admits that she has only been scheming to make him set the others free. He is too proud to punish her, so the pair are forced to separate until the third act when he arrives in Hollywood and finds her, scorned by the cinema critics, in a more congenial mood. Mr. Tellegen is emotionally expert but, like Messrs. Faversham and Atwill, he is working with material which is hardly adult.

Broken Dishes. Playwright Martin Flavin is lucky in the men chosen to play his heroes. His plays do not need bolstering, but The Criminal Code, one of the most pungent of the season's hits, is undeniably better for the presence of the virtuoso Arthur Byron, and Broken Dishes would certainly suffer by the removal of Donald Meek. It is the venerable story of the henpecked husband who finally revolts against his wife and gleefully dons his rightful, symbolic trousers. This time he is stirred to action by his extraordinarily pretty third daughter (Bette Davis) who wants to marry a boy whom her mother dislikes and so escape the fate of her two sisters, fast shriveling into spinsterhood. The wedding takes place in the parlor while mother and two elder daughters are at the movies, and father, impregnated with hard cider, has summoned up enough courage to give his consent. Later, of course, the opposition returns and what was funny becomes funnier.

It is Donald Meek, managing to strike new and sensitive attitudes as an old and exhausted character, who gives the play its frequent quality of high comedy. A Scotsman from Glasgow, he has acted since the age of eight, has appeared in such diverse company as that of the late great Henry Irving and the late great Adam Forepaugh's Circus. He served with a Pennsylvania regiment in the Spanish War, with Canadian troops in the World War. His Broadway engagements have included Going Up, Little Old New York, The Hottentot, Six-Cylinder Love, Jonesy. Broken Dishes gives him his 878th role.

Make Me Know It. This is a melodrama acted by Negroes, all of them with natural vigor, some with skill. But vigor and skill alike are purposeless in a banal, disorganized play which depends for impetus on such lines as these: "But I am too old to marry you." "Daddy, you have pep and life enough for me--make me know it." The gentleman thus addressed is "Bulge" Bannon, black ward boss of Harlem, who, after attempting to use his seductive adopted daughter as a political tool, finds himself in love with her.

White Flame. The hapless heroine of this play pines for years while the man whom she loves has a ghastly time with two marriages. He is a purblind fellow, played by Kenneth Harlan (onetime cinemactor), who does not appreciate her allure until she saves him from death at the hands of a dope fiend. Just why he should love her then is problematical. The little child of his first wife enters to assist the final curtain.