The following reviews of New York theatrical presentations were written for the Crimson by Howard Barnes, assistant dramatic reviewer for the Herald-Tribune.

The final spurt of the New York theatre season, traditional accompaniment of the holiday spirit of Easter Week, finds both managers and the amusement public vastly more optimistic about the ultimate future of the legitimate drama than at the corresponding peak period of last Christmas. Strictly from a business standpoint, the winter has offered lean pickings for producers in general, but since January 1, many of these have prospered exceedingly. And today there are more than a dozen shows on Broadway which distinguish the theatrical years as one of the best in some time.

One of the town's most recent arrivals is already most sought after of the show shop amusements. "Journey's End", by a young English insurance adjuster, R. C. Sherriff, is both the greatest war play ever written and the finest new drama seen on the New York stage this season. One set, a dug-out, suffices for the play which presents a group of Englishmen confronted with the single and terrible protagonist of the war and inevitable violent death. Their reactions, intensified to the last degree, make for scenes of heart-breaking dramatic beauty. Colin Keith Johnson establishes himself as a great actor in the play and his supporting cast, all men, is excellent. The drama, for those interested in dramatic craftsmanship, demands more than one visit.

"Street Scene", by Elmer Rice, will undoubtedly be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the best American play of the year. Like "Journey's End" it employs but one set--the brown stone front of a West Side tenement--and what plot it has is incidential to its theme of the tragic force of a sordid environment in the lives of a small group of human beings. It is distinguished, incidently, by the most terrifying murder one may find on any stage of the Rialto. The third hardest play to get tickets for is the Theatre Guild's production of "Caprice", a light and not too well written farce by the Hungarian Sil-Vara, made vastly entertaining by the direction of Philip Moeller and the fine playing of Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. The Guild still sponsors that five hour marathon by O'Neill, "Strange Interlude", whose latest and far less successful play, "Dynamo" closes tonight.

Not a new play, but one which by many standards quite over-towers any other on view at present in New York is "The Cherry Orchard" by Chekov, consummately produced by Eva Le Gallienne's earnest little band of repertory players in the rickety old Civic Repertory Theatre on Fourteenth Street. Nanimova heads the cast of the play which depicts the slow defeat of a noble Russian family ironically treasuring its unproductive cherry orchard, only to finally see it chopped down by a newly rich peasant who buys the estate.

The stars are nearly all on hand just now. Lenore Ulric brings her blandishments to Belasco's "Mima", fairly swarming with devils and nightly shaking the stage when its steel hell collapses in the denouement. There is Katharine Cornell in a poor dramatization of Edith Wharton's novel, "The Age of Innocence", the star at her finest and given brilliant support in a stuffy play by Arnold Korff. Alice Brady graces with effective acting the rather trivial play based on the old badger game, "A Most Immoral Lady".

Francine Larrimore may be seen in an amusing comedy of manners, "Let Us Be Gay" and Basil Sydney and Mary Ellis are together again in A. A. Milne's slight and not too entertaining whimsy, "Meet the Prince." That frail poetic tragedy, "Paola and Francesca", replete with pretty costumes and phrases such as "the stars in palpitating cosmic passion held" has Jane Cowl in the starring role and Walter Hampden is playing "Cyrano" once more up-town at his Sixty-second Street Theatre. Margaret Anglin does valiant work in making a drama of tragic married life, "Security" convincing and next week Ethel Barry-more will come to her theatre in "The Love Duel", highly praised in its out-of-town engagements. Meanwhile Mrs. Fiske has just opened a revival of that comedy of social climbing in the Third Empire, "Mrs. Bumpstead-Leigh".

"Holiday", Phillip Barry's comedy of the younger generation, still draws the crowds and a curious hodge-podge of critical evaluation, from those who think its smart sophistication eminently satisfactory to those who consider it a hasty re-hash of idle chatter by the smart young New Yorkers one may find at the Algonquin. Jed Harris has two shows on view, the profane and colorful newspaper show, "Front Page" and a not entirely successful fantasy, but a play like none other now in New York, "Serena Blandish", in which Ruth Gordon, A. E. Matthews and Constance Collier depict the languid game of love in Mayfair, seen by a singularly innocent young wanton. "Man's Estate" most recent of the Theatre Guild offerings, gives Margalo Gillmore and Earl Larimore a chance to thrash out the eternal question of a young man choosing between marriage and his life work.

A broad farce portraying the woes of an unmarried father with a child on his hands. "Little Accident" is still, after many months, doing big business. And so also is that finest of mystery plays Milne's "The Perfect Alibi". Hoboken offers two revived melodramas, quite the fashionable thing to attend, and there is another resurrected thriller down on the Bowery. Just arrived in town are Drinkwater's latest play. "Bird in Hand", "Mystery Square", a dramatization of Stevenson's "New Arabian Nights" and a farce, "He Walked in Her Sleep".

The musical comedies are exceptionally entertaining this season, offering a wide variety of material. "Follow Thru" is perhaps the best, a grand show with no outstanding stars but talented performers, good music and an uproariously funny scene in a girl's locker room, adorned with chorus girls in little enough underclothing. Undress is also the basis for a chaste pageant in Ziegfeld's "Whoopee", which has good music as well and the antics of Eddie Cantor. "Spring Is Here" initiating Glenn Hunter into musical comedy is for connoisseurs the brightest and most engaging of this type of attraction though "Hold Everything", an early season offering of Aarons and Freedley is much more a hit by virtue of the much-played air, "Cream in Your Coffee" and the burlesque clowning of Bert Lahr.

The colored revue, "Blackbirds" is well into its second year of performance as is "Show Boat". "Hello Daddy" after a bad start is a popular show with Betty Starbuck affording most of the fun: "The Red Robe" and "The New Moon" are the two best romantic musical comedies and for sheer extravagance of costumes nothing can touch Earl Carrol's "Floretta".