The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-11-18
NE W PLAYS JUST BARELY JET BY
Miss Barrymore And Miss fleming Have Vehicles
 Which Are Only So-So
By WEsTBROOK PEGLER Geased Wire To The Age-Hernld)


 NEW YORK. Nov. 1.-The Sel- wyns, who had hitherto confined themselves to off stage rumbles DOT tending great thinks which they in- tended doing when the season got under way, produced two plays this week. both in the cleverish. English talky parlor manner and both, to lapse into their native idiom, jolly good-really.
 Arthur Hopkins, equerry to the royal Barrymores also produced a play. written by Zoe Atkins, called "A Royal Fandango," with Ethel Barrymore as Princess Amelia. It was Hopkins second venture of the season thus far. And though the the mad "Launzi," of Franz Molnar, which tried to soar on icarian wings and was dashed to death, it was not what might be expected of Hopkins, Miss Atkins or Miss Barrymore.
 With Hopkins doing his part and Miss Barrymore doing hers and the rest of the cast doing theirs, how ever, a play which seemed to be rather immature was assisted over the difficult journey from curtain to curtain and they will make it do. However. Hopkins Is even now re- hearsing the cast for the renewal of John Barrymore's Hamlet and will soon get around to a romantic drama about Ponce De Leon and the Fountain of Youth by Eugene O'Nein.
 In "A Roal Fandango," Miss Bar rymore is a flirtatious princess, who has an understanding with her hus- band that each may indulge in side dishes at their love feast. One finds the royal parsonage sampling all sorts of romantic prunes and corned beef and pigs knuckles. The least attractive lInuckle of them all is the one that is staged before the audi ence, the other being inferred by al- lusions in the dialogue.
 Q o o
 Shares A Matador.
 In the active romance, presented with decent thrift of detail at the Plymouth theatre, Miss Barrymore snares a matador-a faltering suitor who has withheld himself from TO- nance in all previous crises. He takes her away to his home where his mother is. Well. he speaks of keep ing her there, safe from all approach by road, when down from the skies, like an Albert of Belgium, drops no less than the prince himself in the flesh and aerial regimentals. And the matador, a most reactionary strategist, has not armed himself against warfare from the wellSin, so
 
 which to shoot corks at the pair as the prince wings off with his royal fandangaleuse.
 Spring Cleaning" Is the name of the comedy by Arthur Lonsdale, author of Aren't We All?" which the Selwyns presented at the Eltinge theatre. The Eltinge-that suggests
 What has happened to Julian FL tinge, anyway?
 In this play, Spring Cleaning" Violent fleming, blondely beautiful and with a gift of flicllering in lightsome situations, plays the role of an uncourted wife who has en- dured 10 years of condescension from her conceited husband, novelist. He has placed no ashes on the slide in all those years. He has sent her no roses has not reminded her that she is beautiful. Nor has he even consulted her tastes in his neckties. You meet them about the time when he begins to take notice of the frienships she has formed: unsavory friendships with rank rotters, all but one. That one is Steele, who courts her as he has courted many other married women before.
 Candid Exploitation.
 In this play there is the most can did exploitation of the grotesque and revolting sissy" that has been un- dertaken on the New York stage ex- cept in the unrestrained entertain ments of MT. Ziegfeld. This charac- ter is introduced to show the sort of persons that Mrs. Jones, played by Miss fleming. has turned to for amusement.
 But. to get on with the synopsis, the novelist husband brings the trouble to a terrific climax by in- troducing a skinny and otherwise awful person of the streets at din- ner given by his wife for her ob- jectionable friends. This character, played extremely well by Miss Estelle Winwood, has been overwritten by Ionsdale on the sentimental side, for one who has been here and there in London, Paris, Chicago and Times Square can testify that they don't talk as Miss Winwood was made td talk by the author of Spring Clean ing"
 However. that's Lonsdale's story. and he will have to stick to 1t. In the end. the husband comedies that he has been most egregious drome- dary In every possible way, and the pair of them are reunited. It is one of those "Oh, demmit I say, tut-tut" pieces, with stoop- shouldered and languid grotesqueries in trousers and monocle- mayfair stuff from Lon- don, but very entertaining.
 Somerset Maugham's new piece,