Theatre: Best Plays: Aug. 9, 1926

These are the plays which, in the light of metropolitan criticism, seem most important. SERIOUS THE GREAT GOD BROWN—Eugene O'Neill's powerful if sometimes confusing report of how one man bought another's brains. CRAIG'S WIPE—A portrait of that woman down the street whose house is so scrupulously clean that you are chilled to enter it. LULU BELLE—Lenore Ulric as a black rowdy who sails away to Paris with a French vicomte. LESS SERIOUS CRADLE SNATCHERS—Ribald doings on Long Island when three mad young men and three bad elderly ladies foregather for the weekend. AT MRS. BEAM'S—An English invention in which Bluebeard in modern clothes invades a stodgy boarding house. WHAT EVERY WOMAN KNOWS—Helen Hayes and a crisp troupe redealing one of J. M. Barrie's winning hands. MUSICAL The song and dance situation should first be investigated via Sunny, Ziegfeld Revue, Passions of 1926 (formerly The Merry World), The Vagabond King, Scandals, Americana, lolanthe.