The Theatre: New Plays in Manhattan: Dec. 10, 1928

Congai. Civilization wins in this play.

That means that French officers and soldiers will continue suavely to educate Indo-China, using the maxim that the congai is more pleasant than the sword. Congai means something just above a prostitute, one is led to believe, a native "wife" taken by a French colonist for a period of time subject to change without notice. Every bellylaugh in the play is an attempt to explain these meanings; but, of course, grown-up children like to be told all about such things, while off-stage instruments go thumpety-thumpety-thump (atmosphere).

And yet Congai is reputed to contain a tragic significance. A half-French-half-native girl (Helen Menken) would rather be alone in the jungle with her native lover and their native child than have 100,000 Frenchmen at her feet. Circumstances, however, again and again prevent the fulfillment of her life wish and she ends up as the best congai of Indo-China—the congai of the French governor.

Helen Menken's performance is far below that of her Seventh Heaven. The staging by Rouben Mamoulian is not as convincing as his Porgy.

Peter Pan. Such is the intense seriousness of the Civic Repertory Theatre that it resembles the U. S. Cabinet; and Calvin Coolidge, to those who have seen him in leggins, seems a more appropriate impersonator of Peter Pan than Eva Le Gallienne. It was not therefore surprising to find that, as produced by the Civic Repertory Theatre, Peter Pan was a little studied and that Eva Le Gallienne seemed cool-headed and energetic rather than cumbersomely elfin in the name part.

Holiday. Among the most nostalgic of musical instruments are those tinkling boxes which the members of the present generation heard in their nurseries and can never hear again without experiencing some intense and hungry emotion. By causing one of these primitive gramophones to bray gently from deep stage, Author Philip Barry suddenly twists the mood of Holiday from one of gaiety to one of longing.

Philip Barry wrote Paris Bound, a light cocktail of adultery and wit; like that fine play, Holiday begins frivolously. The situation: a girl, Julia Seton, introduces to her glum father, her charming sister and her drunken brother, the clever, adventurous and successful young man whom she wishes to marry. In the second act there is a party at which the engagement is announced; and Linda, the charming sister, invites friends whom she likes better than the correct friends of her family to a private party of her own which she arranges, with bottles of whiskey, in what used to be the nursery. Here two fantastically funny friends of hers invent flowering amusements; then the music box plays and Linda dances with Johnny Case, her sister's fiance.

Later Johnny Case explains to Julia

Seton, in terms which she is unable to understand, that life for him must be a holiday, that he does not want to grab for money. Only Linda shares his lazy, glamorous ambitions. In the last act, of course, it is Linda with whom Johnny Case prepares to go to Europe.