CRIMSON PLAYGOER

Besides its thrills "The Skull" has very little indeed to offer. The authors are frank enough to make no pretense at plot, and the advertisements for the play stress the chills and laughs, not the tenseness of plot situation. If sudden shrieks, queer lights, clutching hands, ghost voices and such phenomena thrill you, there is little doubt that "The Skull" will prove very satisfactory fare. But if you demand more of a mystery play, if you ask a cleverly worked plot you will find the play lacking.

The scene is laid in a deserted church to which come a spiritualist, an international crook, two quarreling lovers and their mutual girl, and of course the man from Scotland Yard. For three acts lights go on and off, spotlights play, and one person after another falls into someone's arms or else is suddenly dragged offstage by a mysterious form. In the end somebody has to be found to be the villain or the play would have absolutely no raison d'etre, and the resourceful authors manage to pin someone down just in time to send the audience home contented.

Inasmuch as the trend in mystery plays has been from baffling plot down to a presentation of grotesque effects and nothing more, the authors of "The Skull" cannot be too severely taken to task. Most good plots have been exhausted by now, but there is still the possibility of giving the public a good scare about once an act. We don't guarantee the goodness of these scares, but no effort is spared in an endeavor to put great numbers of them across.