New Plays in Manhattan

Howdy Stranger (by Robert Sloane & Louis Pelletier Jr.; Theodore J. Hammerstein, Denis Du-For and Robert Goldstein, producers) presents Frank Parker, a radio singer with an amiable voice which seems to have accustomed itself to a microphone. The story deals with a cowboy songster who was born in Flatbush but poses as a genuine product of Wyoming. When his nativity is called in question, he is required to prove himself by riding a horse at a rodeo. Having a psychopathic fear of animals, he is able to pass this test only with the aid of a hypnotist. Since Singer Parker not only sings but also acts as if he were in a broadcasting studio. Howdy Stranger gives the impression of being a series of radio skits adapted for the stage of a summer stock company. The cast includes a horse and a calf.

Behind Red Lights (by Samuel Shipman & Beth Brown; Jack Curtis, producer) is a melodrama based on the mechanics of organized harlotry as illumined in the Manhattan trial of a squint-eyed vice tycoon named Charles ("Lucky'') Lucania (TIME, June 15). One character definitely not drawn from the Lucania dossier is a noble-hearted ''madam" who sheds a steady stream of sweetness & light, tries to dissuade new girls from becoming prostitutes before permitting them to do so, refuses to be coerced by the vice ring and connives with the authorities to smash it. Near the end of this pusillanimous fable she is fatally wounded by one of the villains, reclines on her elbows, delivers a last discourse while the man she loves (the ring-smashing prosecutor) stands idly by.

But for the Grace of God (by Leopold Atlas; Theatre Guild, producer) is a sombre chronicle, without beginning or end, about a poor family named Adamec. The father has been out of work three years. The mother scrubs and washes. The elder son ruins his health in a juvenile sweat shop and the younger shoots the sweat shop boss to get money to help his brother. As a social document But for the Grace of God has unquestionable authenticity. As a play it lacks dramaturgic heights and depths, although there are several memorable individual scenes. Example : the one in which the child workers, panic-stricken when one of them gets caught in a machine, storm the locked fire exits.

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