Theatrical check list

George Jean Nathan

• DODSWORTH (SHUBERT) An expert and pungent dramatization. by Sidney Howard, of the Sinclair Lewis novel. And so well acted in both its leading roles that in the last scene the audience has difficulty in refraining from jumping onto the stage and taking a sock at Fran Bainter along with Sam Huston.

• YELLOW JACKET (MARTIN BECK) — The same Mr. Howard, with Paid de Kruif's help, has negotiated a very creditable, if sometimes slow-moving, stage version of the yellow fever chapter in the latter's Microbe Hunters. The exhibit is one of the better things of the season.

• THE SHINING HOUR (BOOTH) Not much of a play made to seem pretty good to the uncritical by the acting of a proficient English troupe, which includes the Mesdames Cooper and Allen, and M. Massey.

• AH, WILDERNESS I (GUILD) O'Neill's atonement for Days Without End. Nary a mask in it from start to finish and Freud temporarily forgotten. A charming comedy of retrospective kid days, with George M. Cohan admirable in a leading role.

• TOBACCO ROAD (48th ST.) Erskine Caldwell's Gorki-view of Georgia crackerdom made into an unusual and interesting play, with Henry Hull acting the hats ofl the heads of the critical boys.

• NO MORE LADIES (MOROSCO) — When A. E. Thomas stops being Lew Dockstader, an entertaining comedy of tangled love-lives. If the first and third acts were as good as the second, it would he worth writing home about. But they isn't ain't aren't not no, as Gertrude Stein's uncle used to put it.

• THEY SHALL NOT DIE (ROYALE) Scottsboro propaganda so loud that periodically you can hardly make out the lines. It belongs down in the Fourteenth Street Theatre rather than on a stage consecrated (theoretically) by the Theatre Guild to dramatic art.

• ROBERTA (NEW AMSTERDAM)-Jerome Kern's tunes have become so widely popular that, if the cast gets sick, the audience can climb onto the stage and sing the score. If it doesn't know Otto Harbach's book, all the better.

• AS THOUSANDS CHEER (MUSIC BOX) You couldn't ask for much more in the way of a revue. A corker.

• RICHARD OF BORDEAUX (ON TOUR) —The top play of the year. A genuinely fine contribution to the modern drama. Wholeheartedly recommended to the out-of-town clients of this department.

• MARY OF SCOTLAND (ALVIN) Some deft and eloquent writing frequently lifts a basically dubious play into a position of relative importance. Helen Hayes and Philip Merivale stand out from the acting company.

• SAILOR, BEWAREI (LYCEUM) "" Sex in gob uniform, portions of it comical.

• SHE LOVES ME NOT (46TH ST.) Boozy undergraduate didoes, ditto. Its staging calls for a word of praise.

• HER MASTER'S VOICE (PLYMOUTH)Clare Kummer's dialogic ping-pong goes to make it, with the assistance of able players, one of the season's enjoyable comedies.

• ZIEGFELD FOLLIES (WINTER GARDEN) A lively Winter Garden show, even if it isn't Ziegfeld, with Fannie Brice in better trim than ever.

• TOO MUCH PARTY (MASQUE) — Dreadful rubbish, long since interred in the storehouse.

• PERFUMED LADY (AMBASSADOR)-Harry WagstafT Gribble confects a sex gambol with a fairly jolly third act but with a first and second that are long-winded and dull.