New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-07-23
CRITICISM
AND BOOK NEWS
PLAYS by John Galsworthy and Leonid Andre
vev-Schnitzler at His Best-An Amer-
can Civil Attaches War Book.

pathy. One cannot help agreeing with
the very sensible lady of the rectory,
if not with the peasants. Which is, no
doubt. Mr.. Galsworthy's very reason
for writing this play.
Tie title of Andreyev's drama prom
Uses more than he gives US. Truth to
tell this play of his rises but little
more to the occasion than did Barrie's
DER Tag" The task of bringing home
70 us the realities of this war seems to
he beyond the resources of even the
best-traned pens. The Russian dram
atist merely tells us in dialogue what
we already know; he resorts to Maeter-
linck's trick Of repetition of words and
phrases TO produce an atmosphere Of
terror and of unseen horrors yet to
come. but with far less effect; and he
fails utterly in suggesting the grandeur
Of the young King of Belgium, who is
the true hero of this war. Surely, in
drama at least, he should be more than
the modest young man who, in this
play, visits incognito his country's
greatest poet, wounded in its defence.
The chief characters are, indeed, Of
little interest. The mother alone, among
them, strikes the tragic note in her
approaching madness. That note is re-
peated more strongly in the demented
peasant girl ceaselessly asking the way
back to her village which exists no
more; and it sounds most ominously-
in the Maeterlinckian manner again-in
the rising of the waters after the
dikes have been cut, and in the distant
roar of the voices of the drowning
Germans echo. perhaps. of the
horror of the Mazurian lakes. An
dreyev, however good his intention,
might well have left the writing of the
drama of the sorrows of Belgium to
Belgian pen.
The translator furnishes a brief
preface, in which he assures us that
the Russian writer has written AN
other masterpiece" in which he de-
nounces the sufferings OF the Russian
Jews in the war.
Mr.. Bi0rkman's selection Of the three
Schnitzler plays is uneXceptionable
| They present to the full this authors
| attitude toward life, which is the es-
sence Of the WeltnnSchGuun0 of all
/ Vienna, intense in its enjoyment OF
I the fleeing hour, yet always with an
undercurrent Of melancholy. like the
city's famous waltzes. In "The Lonely
Way" indeed. the hour for seriousness
has struck, the time has come for all
its characters to begin to think Of the
bill that must be paid. They are APP
preaching the youth Of old age"
verging on ffty-the woman whose in
discretion lies twenty years behind
her; the man she has loved. his friend
and confdant-bot OF them butterflies
who have gayly spent their summer
and now face the autumnal road OF
loneliness. But the husband. ignorant
Of the deception played upon him,
lauding the wisdom of his own course
in life, pinning his faith to the do
mestic ties he has formed. is yet to
learn that for him, too. old age will be
/ the lonely way For his wife dies, and
his children leave him. According to
| Herr Schnitzler. there are no compen-
+ sations, no consultations for the pass
/ ing of the heyday Of living. And, final.
/ ly, there is the family physician whom
| the Viennese dramatist so often selects
to play the part of the younger
Dumas's rdiSOHneur, the philosopher
and commentator of the piece.
In "The Lonely Way" then, Schnitz-
Ter gives US Vienna in its mood of mel
ancholy, the joys of life which it wor-
| ships left behind it on the road. And
] in it he gives US his own measure as a
serious dramatist. He carries US with
| him while in the theatre, while we are
reading, but the moment the curtain
has fallen. the last page has been
turned, we begin to doubt. Here, more
even than in his lighter mood, he is
Of the city on the Donau rather than
of the world at large. Whatever the
significance of this play for his own
people. whom he knows so well. to US
at distance. in a far different at
mosphere. it makes him appear as a
clever man of the theatre rather than
as 8 member of the band Of dramatists
whose meaning and message are inter
national.
"Intermezzo." Mr.. Biorkman holds,
proves him to be a feminist and zone
of the foremost living painters Of wom-
ans soul" Perhaps. But il is, first Of
all, a clever and naughty comedy Of an
opera singer and her composer-conduc-
tor husband. who agree to 20 their own
WAYS without jealousies or Duplicates,
only to find that these ways bring them
together again after a little while. The
end Of the second act Git is matter
of ATTITUDES, as Numa Roumestan said
strikes US as bit of bad, of very bad
taste. And Countess Mizzie"-again
the dramatist deals chiefly with matur-
ity. not with youths frankly cyni-