The Theatre: New Plays in Manhattan: Feb. 4, 1929

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There were three reasons. Each act was clipped short, the curtain falling just before the audience had reached the climax of enjoyment. Second, the music was exuberant, explosive, punctuated by the hearty (not dainty) shrieks of pretty feminine performers. Lastly, there was a transcendent originality. Two years ago, even one year ago, this magic quality lingered on. Last week, however, it was seen to have finally evaporated, a fault all the more glaring because every number in the present program is new, in the sense of not having been shown before in the U. S.

Almost all the "new" acts are shoddy reach-me-downs from former successes. They are not clipped short before they begin to pall. The music is a damp package of the old fireworks. Several of the set tings, notably "The Celebrated Popoff's Porcelains," are direct steals from such past Bat Theatre triumphs as the "Dutch Platter Porcelains."

Finally, what was once the impish and diverting anti-U. S.-ism of M. Balieff has soured into an apparent U. S.-phobia. Two years ago in Paris, the attack could be seen coming on. Spleen and scorn for les Americains, who had been fools enough to make M. Balieff rich, were explicitly on his lips in Paris. Last week, in Manhattan, they lurked in his innuendo, deadened the jollity that once beamed from his round Cheshire-cat-face.

Hot Water. Lucille La Verne has been identified so long with an old hag in Sun-Up that it was hard to believe in her latest characterization, that of a decayed but kind-hearted actress named Duckie. This actress, once highly popular behind footlights, has become, through the re versals of circumstance, a janitress. But she continues doing many good turns every day, for which the recipients repay her badly.

It is her invention of "showersols," a practical device which no doubt will be patented by some one of the few spectators at Hot Water, which eventually brings her victory over janitorial and other diffi culties. ''Showersols" are collapsible umbrellas. A kind, rich friend of Duckie's takes to manufacturing them, thereby providing Duckie with wealth and a moral value for the play, which has little value of any other kind.

Merry Andrew. Druggists are notoriously busy and peculiar characters. So fantastic and interesting are their occupations, that, when they attempt to leave their tinted shelves, druggists find themselves drawn back, like outworn reporters, to the charms of their conversational counters. Investigating this novel theme, Lewis Beach (The Goose Hangs High) last week delivered to a giggling audience his history of the successive industry, retirement, and return, not to the grindstone but to the happy pharmacy of one Andrew Aiken, impersonated by plump Walter Connolly, placidly absurd but only mildly funny.

Zeppelin. Because it strives for nothing but a thrilling effect, this piece, which otherwise would be unworthy of production, achieves its aim and will entertain persons who look to the Crime Club for cerebral diversion. All the action takes place aboard a dirigible, now in a com panionway, now in the observation gondola. There is a professor, a formula for synthetic leprosy, a threat against all nations, an international spy, an adventuress, a leper, etc. etc. The wreck is ably done.

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