New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1914-05-30
| LITERARY CRITICISM
AND BOOK NEWS
Shaw and Schnitzler: The Drama League and
Modern Drama Seres-Sir Robertson
Nicoll - Old Chelsea.


precedence over her when her husband
is knighted. Hence "bataille de
danes" The play was produced III
London by Mary Tempest, but anus
ing and clever though it is, with
cleverness which is more than verbal.
and which reaches beyond situation TO
character. II failed Of success. VITA
us il ould have no chance whatever.
our present. day public demands sub
stance and speed rather than artistry
and, well, the struggle for precedence
between two English manufacturers
wives in a provincial town is topic
that could hardly be expected to inter-
est it, even if it had glimmer of the
social perspective. IL is of this lack
of appreciation of the comedy OF man.
ners among us that Clayton Hamilton
writes in his Introduction to the play.
But is he quite right in assuming hat
we have always lacked this apprecia-
tion-that we have never yet had a
social tradition of our own? Would
il not be nearer the truth TO say that
we have ost this tradition during the
last thirty years or so, and with 1t the
appreciation which made the produce
ton of English and Continental COM
edies of manners profitable and enjoy
able then, and which, but for its up
setting. might have given us comedy
of manners of our own as well?
Mr.. Thomas's Her Husbands Wife
"a farce-comes perhaps as near to
the comedy of manners as can be eX-
pected from the changes which have
taken place in this country since our
social tradition began TO wane. i. is
an amusing trifie, and it reads sur
prisingly well.
Both Mr.. Bjorkman and Mr.. Ken
nerley earn our increasing gratitude
with each new issue Of the valuable
Modern Drama Series, which covers
with such thoroughgoing discrimina-
Lord Dunsanys Five Plays" are
doubly and triply welcome. Mr.. Bjork-
man, in his introduction, links the
Irish writer's method to Maeterlincks,
and with good reason; he differentiates
between the uses made by both of that
method with even greater justice.
Lord Dunsany employs the Belgian's
vagueness of place and time; he has
Af l.. al. e q,
logue, but he is far more direct for all
that, and his appeal is more immedi
ate. The Gods of the Mountain" sug-
gests a Russian production; it fairly
quivers with atmosphere and meaning.
And there are Homeric moments in
King Argimenes," the conquered mon
arch reduced to slavery, who finds a
buried sword and with it regains what
he has lost. The symbolism of The
Golden Doom" is perhaps somewhat
, obvious, but its theatrical quality is
unquestionable. One cares far less for
The Glittering Gate" which, on paper
at least, seems ineffective; and better
| forms have been found for the satire
on British conventionality than that Of
THE Lost Silk Hat" But the first
three plays suffice to give us the quail
ity Of this neo-Celt, whose imagination
ranges far beyond the field of it's cult.
Mr.. Lawrences "Widowing of Mrs.
Holroyd" is a somewhat verbose trag-
edy of the English black country. It's
study of character and its varying re-
actions TO catastrophe are excellent, but
its grewsome third act makes stage
production improbable. 1t belongs to
what may be loosely termed the peas
ant play" of which we have had an
even more grewsome specimen during
the past theatrical season in The
Black Mask" The genre is old, but
since the advent of the Irish Players
and their plays we have come to accent
IL as something entirely new. Chance"
belongs to this genre, and, in a way,
''Hindle Wakes" The Sicilian Players
gave us a few years ago a glimpse Of
its local form in their own island; and
for several years a company of Bava-
rian Peasant Players has presented a
series of its own dramas in supple
mentary seasons at the Irving Place.
both plays and players being superior
to Lady Gregory's repertory and or
eanization.