THREE SOUTHWEST PLAYS, including WHERE THE DEAR ANTELOPE PLAY,

by John William Rogers ' 16. Southwest Review, Dallas, Texas, 1942, 326 pp., $2.50.

I LOVE TEXAS. I think the three most interesting states in the Union are Texas, California, and Vermont. In that order? Well, I am a New Englander and won't tell. But I am sure I love Texas. It has wonderful football teams, immense spaces, the Alamo, our second busiest port, miles and miles from the sea, the ugliest capitol building I ever saw, and it is full of Texans. I have never known a Texan I haven't liked.

But Mr. Rogers' play gave me pause, because it made me realize that I've never known a Texas woman. According to John Rosenfield's foreword to this book, Mr. Rogers's women are not merely creatures of his dramatic imagination; they actually exist. And not only that: Mr. Rogers, or somebody else, gets them to act on the stage the characters he drew from their real lives!

That, I think, could happen only in Texas. It has the quality of forthrightness and energy that I associate with Texans, too. But I wonder —would I like Texas women as I have liked Texas men?

The play is about a woman who invades a pleasant Texas home with plans for promoting "culture." Her plans shift from interior decoration to Leisure-time Leagues and back, but she is a dynamo and it doesn't matter. The play is undoubtedly actable, and might go on Broadway. But there can't be much doubt that at the Dallas Little Theatre, for the people who knew the characters in life, it was a carnival.

This is Mr. Rogers' third full-length play. He is quite distinguished as a writer of oneactors, and he shows here that he can handle the longer form most effectively.