New-York tribune., 1919-03-23
'M0Iiere'' Ne1u Vein
In Philip MoeHer'

would have great difficulty in intro
ducing new point of view. Moeller
is bit better off with Moliere. The
percentage Of people in the average
audience who know much about him
would be slight indeed. Louis XIV is
not very we'll known around these
parts, either
But Moeller has not trespassed to
any great extent on these privileges.
His king is perhaps a more amusing
figure than his Moliere, but no damage
is done to the play by this fact. Mo-
liere remains the more interesting fig
ure. There is one excellent reason
why the playwright must keep his
hero bit grim and lofty. After all,
the big scene of the play depends upon
his playing the Joseph with grace and
dignity. On the opening night Mr..
Miller confessed in a humorous cur
tain speech that he found the attitude
of aloofness to the Establishments of
Miss Bates difficult one to maintain.
But, as matter of fact, this particu-
lar scene is handled with extraordinary
skill by the playwright. He succeeds
in making his hero virtuous man and
yet no prig. The feat is not always
easy.
Taking the play from more general
point of view, it seems to US that it
deserves praise for holding very close
ly to the romantic note. Occasionally
this makes for artihciality. Charac-
ters speak now and again in bonn
bastlc way. This is, at least, a little
rant. All this we hold to be no
subject for adverse criticism. Once
a character appears with frills on his
sleeves and his trousers and we ex-
pect, and desire, him to deck his
phrases with frills. Too much gcs-
ture, of course, would be tiresome,
but the quantity is nicely adjusted in
"Moliere."
Given play which is nearly always
appealing and at best tremendously
exciting, as in the scene where Moliere
breaks with the king, certain demands
grace and beauty are required of those
who would act in romantic drama. 1t
seems to US that Miss Blanche Bates
brings all three to her extraordinary
performance. She is, perhaps, just a
shade too hammered in the first act,
but we found an enormous lift to her
playing in the second act Her burst
of rage is remarkable piece of work
because with all her vehemence she
never loses conference. Miller did
when he was called upon to play at
top pace, but on the other hand his
death scene was splendidly contrived.
Holbrook Blinn is by no means the
type for Louis XIV, and yet he gave
an excellent performance. If he
missed a little of the foppish possi-
bilities of the part he was at least
sure in the indication Of all the humor.
"Moliere" seems to US very worthy
representative of the oncoming rush
of romantic drama. For the present
we say clay on" with the best will in
the world. In season or 80 we may
be shouting for return to realism.
The trouble with realism is that there
was so little Of it. A play which sets
out to be realistic and then is some
thing else fails utterly. We saw many.
They had all the slow pace of real life,
but none Of the intriguing quality Of
truth. God speed them!
One championship should be awarded
to Henry Miller. Nobody makes such
good curtain speeches.
We can spell Moliere better than it
was spelled in our first review of the
play. Some of the ops" were not ours.