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The same group which outdid itself on "Candida" has made a splendid job in the revival of Ibsen's "The Wild Duck". It is probably the first adequate presentation (Edwin Booth and Mrs. Siddons notwithstanding) of the piece that has been made in America. Nazimova's performance suffered as always from a sort of St. Vitus dance, which disturbed the contour (see Mr. Stark Young) of the piece. In her rôle, that of Hedvig, Helen Chandler gives a performance truly remarkable in its pathos and beauty. Also, it may be said with thanksgiving, she looks like a girl of fourteen. The part, as it is written, is a little wooden, perhaps through some deficiency in Ibsen's understanding of children. In Miss Chandler's hands it catches fire and lives. But the best performance is probably that of Blanche Yurka as the patient, ageless Gina. It dominates the whole piece, even in the moments when she is not on the stage. Tom Powers as the detestable Gregers Werle presents at times the aspect of an American go-getter, yet his performance must be excellent, for never was a villain more loathed by an audience. Clare Eames and Dudley Digges made a superb job of the staging and direction. It seems that these two, so unflaggingly excellent as actors, have a talent as directors which is almost greater.

"Processional", that ugly duckling of the Theatre Guild, has meanwhile turned the corner and become a very successful swan. Nevertheless, it is so violent a cause for disagreement that the town has been torn asunder and homes otherwise peaceful have been threatened by disruption. It is destined apparently to live and thrive upon dissension. The New Yorker, without recanting a word of his earlier profession, wishes to restate his case

that, whether or not the play be

"drayma", it provided him with nearly three hours of entertainment. The nearest approach to his sensations can be obtained by visiting Coney Island in an hilarious condition.

Under cover of the smoke and flame of the above mentioned warfare, "Ariadne", a mild little comedy by A. A. Milne, crept into the Garrick under the ægis of the Guild. The piece is referred to usually as "slight" and "meagre", etc., etc.; but why shouldn't we have, among the salvos of "Desire Under the Elms" and "Processional" and a dozen others, an occasional bright little package of firecrackers. "Ariadne", like "She Had to Know" and the lamented "Isabel", is delightful entertainment for persons of average intelligence or better. It skims briskly along, with the hand of the delightful Laura Hope Crews on the tiller steering it safely past the shallows of sentimentality. Needless to say, "Ariadne" might, without the excellent direction and cast, have proved thin fare. But it isn't. In the cast is Frieda Inescort whom some day a wise manager will discover and turn into a star.

Boredom, it seems, has become the goal of a certain school of "experimenters" in the arts. The latest example of this theory was the production of "Michel Auclair" staged, after much beating of drums, at the Provincetown Playhouse. It is difficult to judge the piece because, in the original French, it may have possessed a certain colloquial reality sufficient to justify it. On an American stage, with an American cast which found six distinct ways of pronouncing the name "Suzanne" (not to mention other French words which made their appearance), this piece by Charles Vildrac lacked authenticity and degenerated at times into a sort of French

Pollyanna. Waldo Frank writes in the program a breathless eulogy of the author, who, it must in justice be said, wrote an excellent play, "The Steamboat Tenacity", produced here a year or two ago; but how a man of such good taste and theatrical sense Sidney Howard became involved in the endless nonsense is a mystery. It has not even the merit of being experimental, which could be said of "Beyond", done a week or two earlier with the same attendant solemnity.

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One of the annual jokes at the expense of the dramatic critics occurred a month or two ago, when a play called "Is Zat So?" opened with all the critics absent at the first night of one or the other of the many muchheralded pieces which have disappeared with such disturbing frequency during the winter into the storehouses of Eighth Avenue. It was a comedy by two actors, James Gleason and Richard Taber, products of stock company training. A week or two later gossip began to circulate that here was a fine comedy, done in New Yorkese with an authentic sense of asphalt and subways. The talk grew and grew until now "Is Zat So?" is one of the great successes, and is generally conceived to be "artistic" as well as commercial. Immediately, after the manner of Broadway, the managers began hounding Gleason for the manuscripts of other plays. They would have produced a telephone book written by Gleason; only the next play didn't turn out to be a telephone book. It proved quite as good as the first. In writing it, Mr. Gleason had the collaboration of George Abbott, that excellent actor who plays with June Walker one of the leads in the noisy "Processional". It is called "The Fall Guy" and in it Ernest Truex gives a very nearly perfect performance.

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All this leads one to respect the eternal truth of the old law of the theatre: that authentic plays with a real flavor of race and soil come from inside the theatre and are not handed down to the stage from the lofty heights of "arty" condescension.

The New Yorker also made a belated visit to Ed Wynn's show "The Grab Bag" and, although suffering at the moment from bronchitis, had an hilarious evening. Surely Ed Wynn and Al Jolson, despite Gilbert Seldes, will survive as great artists in the real sense of the word.

It is the much maligned Shuberts who are to bring to New York next month the treat for which most of the city has been waiting with an irritable

impatience for many years. In the pioneering footsteps of the Provincetown Players' production of "Patience", they are to present forthwith a number of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, the first of which will be "The Mikado". The cast has been announced as "all star".

There is little need to mention "The Constant Nymph" by Margaret Kennedy, a superb novel of which the New Yorker has heard but one adverse comment. This came from an old lady who returned her copy to the bookstore saying, "You recommended this and I gave it to a sick friend. She read three pages and refused to go a step further." The friend, it seemed, was overwhelmed by the impropriety of the book. It is necessary to add that, in the opinion of the writer, there never was a cleaner, more honest and healthy book; which brings us round

...

the vicious circle to the starting place whether the obscenity in a book or a play lies in the thing itself or in the mind of the reader. A statistical survey of the field or an X-ray of the protesting minds would produce, it is to be feared, a shocking amount of garbage in the ranks of the zealous reformers.

Meanwhile New York has set in operation its play jury. At the time of going to press, the jury has approved two plays without qualification, "Desire Under the Elms" and "They Knew What They Wanted", and suggested the toning down of certain business in "The Firebrand". mains to be seen how the jury will judge Mr. Belasco's twin gems "The Harem" and "Ladies of the Evening". Amid the plush and gold of Mr. Belasco's perfumed theatres, it will find a different problem.

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THE BOOKMAN'S GUIDE TO FICTION

THE BOOKMAN will present each month tabloid reviews of a selected list of recent fiction. This section will include also the books most in demand according to the current reports in "Books of the Month", compiled by the R. R. Bowker Company, The Baker and Taylor Company's "Retail Bookseller", and "THE BOOKMAN'S Monthly Score". Such books as the editor specially recommends are marked with

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