Theatre: New Plays in Manhattan: Feb. 23, 1931

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Doctor X. For reasons best known to himself, Dr. X, the criminologist, has assembled five total strangers who were once shipwrecked, it being his contention that the perpetrator of a shocking series of recent murders once experienced disaster at sea. Unfortunately, the good doctor neglects to include the real killer among his suspects. As a result, while the party is witnessing the re-enacting of the crime and being subjected to various guilt-detecting machines, quite a few people are slain. The play includes, of course, one lunatic, one scary maid, two lovers. Doctor X is not a first-rate mystery drama, but it frightens at times.

She Lived Next to the Firehouse. This burlesque reaches an eventful climax when a brigade of smoke-eaters, having individually secreted themselves in the home of a igth Century charmer, are roused out by a fire alarm, rush off to the blaze clad in long red-flannel underclothing. Main plot: a group of firemen are enamored of the lady who lives next door, court her privily when her husband (a traveling salesman) is away, are found out and have to explain their activities to their wives. To create atmosphere of the gay '90s, old wheezes are cracked, luxurious mustaches are twisted and two ancient steeds—Annie and Katie—gallop to a conflagration on a treadmill. The spectacle of funny, plump Victor Frederick Moore (Princess Charming, Hold Everything) in a fire chief's hat is worth the price of admission.

The Barretts of Wimpole Street. Not only has Playwright Rudolf Besier succeeded in presenting an interesting phase in the life of famed Poetess Elizabeth Barrett Moulton-Barrett, but he has artfully achieved an absorbing picture of gloomy Victorian domesticity. Wisely the play focuses its attention on the family life of the poetess, her two sisters, her six vague but stereotyped brothers who come to pay her dutiful calls in her sick room, her strange, unnatural father. Poet Robert Browning's courtship of Elizabeth is depicted in brief, brilliantly contrasting interludes.

All five scenes are laid in Elizabeth's bed-sitting-room where she has languished for years under her father's tyrannous love. It is here that Browning begins his deliberate and life-giving lovemaking, here that Father Barrett breaks each of his children one by one, here that Elizabeth becomes aware of her parent's mad, incestuous devotion to her. From this room she leaves 50 Wimpole Street forever, goes off to Browning and Italy.

As the withering poetess, Katharine Cornell turns in an extraordinarily delicate and restrained piece of acting. So convincing was her drinking of a detested pitcher of porter, so stirring her defense of a browbeaten sister, so moving her portrayal of an invalid who passionately wished but mortally feared to be a wife, that first night spectators yelled "Bravo!" as the final curtain fell.* The supporting cast is capable: Jo Mielziner has mounted the piece as picturesquely as a John Leech drawing. A small Cocker spaniel as Flush behaves admirably.