The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1915-07-24

Many dramas are published
days. Maxim Gorki's Submerged" a
play in four acts translated from the
Russian by Edwin Hopkins Orchard
6. Badger, Boston,, has its scene in a
cellar This is a place for dodgers, a
crowded and promiscuous home. 1t
has hunks. a stove. a large table,
benches. The company includes a
baron in eclipse, a locksmith who has
his anvil and wise in the place and
works nois.ly with hammer and file;
the locksInith's wife, who is dying of
consumption. a young woman of the
streets. who reads trashy romances;
an actor who declares repeatedly that
ms organism is poisoned with alcohol:
a c~apinaker who cuts out his ma
ter!al from cast off coats and trousers:
Il wandering old philosopher full Of
generous sympathies; a widowed mar
ket oma who scorns the state of
matrimony: a thief, a porter from
Tartary. and dodgers besides. The con-
r~ersation Is varied: il expresses views
VI me- 1t includes the milder forms of
chan as well as scornful and bitter
interchange; II Is largely disputations.
FOR heavens sake stop screaming
and quarrelling,' begs the dying
oman Let me at least die in quiet"
And one Of the company responds:
The noise isn't keeping you from
Dying But kind as well as brutal
things are said and done in the cellar.
In the course Of the play the keeper
OF the cellar lodgings is beaten 10
death, the iocksmith goes mad and the
actor who is a~lcoholized hangs him
seIf. II is not a play to he recon-
mended to a reader suffering from low
spirits.
In August ~Str,ndberg's Advent"
translated by Claud Field Orchard
Badger, Boston,, the devil is not al ali
the conventional figure. He il no BUR-
CHASER or souls. no tempter provided
with a gllttering price. We find him
repentant' a foe OF evil, a strict truth
teller. His treatment of the corrupt
Judge caves nothing 10 be desired by
those who favor exact and u%nfinchinr
justice. II Judge and his equally
wicked wife had good reason to trem-
BILE when they were down among the
casks in their we'll stocked cellar try
ing 10 drink a glass of wine comfort
ably. He Is "A charlatan Of the first
order says the Judge, emboldcned by
the wine, addressing his wife, and
speaking OF the devil. "A charlatan.
and II he came before my eyes now |
would drink TO him and say. Your
health, old thief" No delay in the
response to this challenge. A swish
through the air, rather imagined than
heard. The glass is snatched from the
Judges hand and disappears. The
lantern goes out. A storm wind is
heard TO blow for "A moment, then
ialis stu The devil steps from be-
nina a cask. OFF with your can"
says he. He blows a puff from his
mouth and the Judges cap falls off.
II is the devil who conducts the in
visible court that condemns the Judge
and after the executioner's axe has
mysteriouslY ratified in its place on the
wall strips him of the plumber that nc
mas gathered from widows and or
phans and from "A decapltated sailor
VINO comes in carrying his head in his
hahdS' 80 100 after The wicked wife
mas peen frozen In a swamp and has
descended to Hades it Is the devil who
explains to her the ways and rules ar
the place and who acts as master of
ceremonies at the ball which she has
neeh so eager to attend. When the
lrince her partner in the dance. calls
her an old witch because she has
called him "A humpback and spits in
her face and knocks her down and
pulls of her wig, 1t Is the devil again
who generously ~interferes and sa YES
her from further lndignitIes. 1t is a
rama Of great ana strange imapina-
ton m Il lesson II teaches is too
plain to he mistaken.
Three plays 10y Arthur Schnltzler.
the Vienna dramatist, translated by
Edwin Bjorkman, are published In one
volume mitchell kcnncrley). In .Tho
Lonely Way" the dialogue is, mostly
reminiscent The characters sit and
converse calmly, slowly Illuminating
the past and their connection with II.
What "" lcarn is analytical and
psychologist, and it Is easy to think
that IA" play could mover gcl into the
movies The pr fcssor's daushtcr.