New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-02-23
In the Play World
Poetic Play by Harry Kemp
Proves Interesting at
Trial Matinee
By HAYWOOD BROUN

Harry Kemp is an ecstatic, and that's
a very startling sort Of person 70 have
around in a world which looks sus-
piciously at mere enthusiasm. The
theatre needs ecstacy more than any
thing else, and so it is a pleasure TO
record the fact that Kemp has turned
playwright.
His one-sct tragedy, "Boccaccio's Un-
told Tale" was played by students OF
the Washington Square Dramatic
School at the Comedy Theatre on
Wednesday afternoon. Kemp can i'm
provise a religion, a system Of econom-
les, a new philosophy Of history or
what you will with great charm and
eloquence, but, curiouslv enough, ne IS
lust A little afraid of the theatre. We
find his play interesting and at time :
beautiful, but it mas a distinctly formal
quality which rarely appears IN ms
verse Of course, IL Is easy 70 say that
our greatest tragedies have always
been tinged with formality, but Kemp
should be the last person in the world
70 Justify himself by the past, no mat
ter how great the master. We are also
somewhat offended by the fact that the
vital moment Of the play depends on
physical horror, but such an objection
is entirely personal and quite indie
feasible.
The theme of the play is lofty in its
treatment of the story of a man who
blinds himself in order TO save his love
when he is falsely informed that the
beauty of his mistress has been raw
aged by the plague. Although the i'm
mediate tragedy depends on mistake,
it is essentially the inevitable tragedy
Of the man who worships beauty.
Most successfully the playwright has
succeeded in giving his play the mood
Of fear and foreboding inspired by the
great plague which is raging through
the city. First we hear internationally
and then constantly the murmur of the
professions outside. Conflicting and
contrasting with this mood is the sug-
gestion from Niolante of haven in Boo
caccio's garden, where:
Remote from Florence and invisible
Death
There, in green gardens full Of birds
and leaves,
The blue wandering heavy
spread above
We shall beguile the time with mer-
riment,
Music and song, and telling of many
tales,
Trusting that Death, glutted with null
tItudes,
VIII pass us by -.
The blank verse of the play Is Wig
orous and dramatic, but just shade
cautious. 1t never catches Kemp by
the heels and tugs him along. Although
Harry Kemp has established himself as
a lyric poet of considerable achieve
ment and rare promise, we hope that
he will 20 on with play writing. Some
body has said, and it was probably
Simeon Strunsky. that poetic drama IS
what drives people 10 the movies. But
a great deal so-called poetic drama
is not drama, and much more OF 1t IS
not poetry. Successful verse drama
must be written not by people who lapse
into poetry, but BY those whose lapses
are prose ones. Harry Kemp's poetry
is chronic. and he finds fun IN II for
all the fact that he can fashion lyric
without stepping on it 1t wouldn't
SUNRISE US a bit II IL we're possible 70
devise a modern blank verse drama
which should also be a good show.
We are unable 10 say anything ABOUT
the acting OF the Washington Square
students because we did not attend the
performance, which suiflees as an eA'
cuse for this review.