Quicksand. Theatrically, lawyers get themselves into the most disturbing jams. This lawyer fell in love with the woman whose husband he was defending on the charge of murder, only to find both man and wife members of a harsh crowd of criminals. Eventually he escapes from his dilemma by sending the wife to jail for five years and planning to have the sentence quickly cut down. Such proceedings call for no small amount of insight and ingenuity to make them credible. A good deal has been supplied, but not enough. The play works itself up to a pitch of considerable excitement and then subsides, fizzling feebly. Robert Ames, who sometimes acts in the movies, availed himself ably of the opportunities of the leading part.
Spring 3100 is the telephone number of the Manhattan police headquarters. Accordingly one might reasonably expect a stern diversion dealing with the police department on duty through a bloody evening. But the play, of all things, is a dream fantasy. A pugilist is hit on the chin and the developments of the second act are designed to explain what a pugilist thinks about when he is knocked unconscious. It seems this particular pugilist wanted to be an architect and marry a maid above his station. His distrustful manager suggested that if he persisted in these inflated notions he would land at police headquarters. These disheveled inventions are woven into a play, mad enough to fool most of the spectators for much, of the evening. When the hero took the stage and exterminated virtually the entire troupe with revolver shots it was patent that something was askew. Tangles and untangles, it was fairly good fun.
Hot Pan. The adventurous and inquisitive Provincetown Playhouse tucked darkly away in downtown Manhattan has made another rabid experiment. One Michael Swift, distressed at many phases of U. S. life, particularly at the craze for gold, has collected his complaints in a play. He sets it in the California gold rush days and much of it occurs in a boisterous bar. Gold is discovered under the floor. There is a gold rush. Bright scarlet women circulate suggestively. Men howl for whiskey. There is no pretense at connected story. Mr. Swift is seemingly as much at war with dramatic forms as with this world we live in. Flashes of vivid satire, bits of brutal delight gleamed in his dialog like gold nuggets. The rest was sand and water.