New Plays in Manhattan

The Milky Way (by Lynn Root & Harry Clork; Sidney Harmon & James R. Ullman, producers). Besides skunk cabbages, Spring also produces here & there a bright-hued crocus. It was only to be expected that, somewhere within last week's vernal jungle of rank theatrical growths, one amusing piece would pop up its head. That piece is The Milky Way. Burleigh Sullivan (Hugh O'Connell) was a weakly child--"a Sagittarius baby," he recalls--who only survived his school days by his gift for adroit ducking. This talent he uses to good effect one evening when tipsy Speed, world's middleweight champion, and his trainer simultaneously swing on him, miss and knock each other out. Misinformed, newspaper headlines next day scream that unknown Burleigh 'Sullivan has thrashed the champion. To save Speed's reputation, Burleigh is persuaded by Speed's manager to abandon his beloved milk route, become a fighter himself so that Speed may eventually demolish him in public and vindicate his prowess.

Terrified at first, Burleigh gets to like his new job, does not realize that his string of one-round victories has been framed. Besides, he has acquired Mazie, a ponderous St. Bernard in a pink bow whose pupil-less eyes look out with uncanny wistfulness across the footlights. When reporters ask him if he is any kin to John L. Sullivan, Burleigh asks "Is he a fighter, too?" He is certain, however, that the championship is "in the bag." This piece of impudence so enrages Speed that, although he has about decided to foreswear the match as a favor to Burleigh's sister with whom he is in love, the bout takes place. Not only is Speed knocked silly but also loses all his marrying money by betting on himself.

Appearing with a bundle of roses, Burleigh diffidently asks where . Speed wants him to put them.

"Don't," cries a flashy blonde friend of the manager, "tell him in front of me!'

A hilariously happy ending is effected by daffy Burleigh with the aid of a milk distributing project and six St. Bernards.

Most of the laughs in The Milky Way are products of its actors rather than its authors. Assisting Mr. O'Connell, one of the funniest white men on the stage, are droll William Foran and a brash young woman named Gladys George.

If sheer adversity entitles an actor to the title of trouper, Hugh O'Connell is a trouper of the Eagle Scout class. As a child he was sent West from New York with a trainload of other orphans. It was O'Connell's good fortune to be adopted by an affectionate couple in Kaukauna, Wis. His foster mother was as stage-struck as he, and when he had not earned his way into the Opera House by sticking up posters for a touring troupe, she usually could lay hands on a half-dollar to buy them both gallery seats. He won a scholarship to a dramatic school in Chicago, began a professional career which often reduced him to one stew a day, stranded him once as far north as Alaska.

That cycle of naughty dramas which began with Twin Beds and lasted through Getting Gertie's Garter and Up In Mabel's Room proved a boon to Hugh O'Connell. He was the drunk who always went to bed in the wrong room. In this time-tested sequence, he proudly recalls one trick which never failed to convulse his audience. Slowly pulling off his pants he would fling them into the chandelier. ''After that," he says, ''I could just lay back and rest for about five minutes." The Racket (1927) and Gentlemen of the Pres-- (1928) were Broadway successes which paved his way to the role of a bemused cinema director in Once In a Lifetime. The part of Officer Meshbesher in Face the Music followed. As amusing off stage as on, Hugh O'Connell has a little dog whom he named "Kiki" before he investigated his sex and which, to avoid further confusion, he still refers to as she. He has likewise formed a close attachment for Mazie (also male), soothes the huge animal when they are about to appear on the stage, pats it and talks to it. Hugh O'Connell is 36, unmarried; if he has a hobby it is eating. He has a strong preference for chili, but his favorite dish is still stew.

Every Thursday (by Doty Hobart; O. E. Wee & Jules J. Leventhal, producers). There must be few maids-of-all-work who so assiduously pursue the good deeds that occupy bright-haired, charming Sadie (Queenie Smith) in Mr. Hobart's play. Sadie firmly dissuades the young master from his juvenile excesses, even going so far as to disrupt his romance with a painted lady from the wrong part of town. Sadie herself has a hankering for him but, a conscientious domestic, she decides to stay in her own class.

Lovely Queenie Smith, whose twinkling legs and gay little voice used to give her admirers much pleasure in musicomedies (Tip Toes), has recently taken to straight comedy. She has been touring in Every Thursday, does herself an injustice by bringing this unworthy comedy to Broadway. Queenie Smith's husband, Robert Garland, theatre critic for the World-Telegram, refrained from reviewing his wife's play. In his stead, second-string Critic William Boehnel praised the actress, deplored her vehicle.

I, Myself (by Adelyn Bushnell; Malcom L. Pearson & Donald E. Baruch, pro-ducers). Bill Trent, an unsuccessful New England lawyer, hires a hobo to kill him, thus sending his soul into the Invisible. In the After Life, Bill meets his old A. E. F. top sergeant, who accompanies him back to watch his own funeral. Bill is properly impressed with the obsequies, but it soon becomes evident that his death is not the boon to his family he had hoped. His $50,000 insurance does not prevent Mrs. Trent's being suspected of murder, does not help his daughter out of an extra-marital scrape. But ghostly Bill keeps wandering around and praying, finally sets things to rights.

For his first venture into theatrical production, Co-producer Donald Edward Baruch, nephew of Financier Bernard Mannes Baruch, unhappily picked what is known to his newly adopted profession as a "turkey."

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