New-York tribune., 1921-11-11
The New Play
By Percy Hammond
Eugene O'Ncill in "'The
Straw" Depicts the Joys
and Sorrows Of the
Tubercular
THE CAST.

Mrs. BrennRn.......... Jennie Lamont
Although it is Eugene O'Neill's in
clination to sit, among tho sorrows
when he writes a play, and to bid all
the woes to cluster round about him,
he seems never to be lugubrious. His
dolors, while always emphatic, are sell
dom ostentatious or exaggerated, and
he keeps them free from solemnity.
In "The Straw" for instance, which
Mr.. Tyler produced last evening at the
Greenwich Village Theater, consump-
tives are his characters, and their
disease, its beginnings and develop
ment, is its motive power. Yet it does
not depress. Off-hand you may say
that sanatorium life among the in
fected, with eloquent pictures of their
decay or their convalescence,i is not your
idea of entertainment in a theater.
| And you may be right about it, If,
however, you are weary Of contact with
the dramas routine melancholies and
long for new deiections with which to
purge your soul you may find recrea-
tion in the story of "The Straw" =
y 81 Il .. 3.
At any rate, graphic playwriting and
excellent acting are available in the
performance at the Greenwich Village.
First, you encounter Miss Margola Gill
more, as Eileen Carmody, who, broken
by unselfish labors for her selfish fam
lily, is condemned to hospital for con-
sumptives Miss Gilmore's mettle is
disclosed at once in her look of horror
as her sweetheart, learning of her af
fiction, is reluctant to kiss her goodby.
Thereafter, through the various joys
and distresses of her season in the
plague house-her forlorn experience
in romance with thoughtless fellow
patient-she is remarkable in her i'm
personation. None of the narrowing
| symptoms of phthisis are employed to
rack your feelings, and, so far as out
ward appearances go, Eileen is not even
asthmatic. But in the final scene,
where, in the isolation room of the
hospital, the man she loves discovers
that he loves her, the pitiable ecstasies
of the situation inspire your nerves to
new and peculiar vibrations.
! x. * X
In this, as in other scenes of the
romance. Miss Gilmore's playing is
reinforced by Mr.. Otto Kruger's char
acterization of the young novelist with
whom Eileen falls in love. 1t is fine,
Straightforward performance, admirable
in it's reticence and simplicity. All
the cast is superior, however, and par
ticularly as in the cases of Mr.. Harry
Harwood as Eileen's hard father, and
Miss Katherine Grey as the head nurse
at the hospital. Some of the scenes
in the sanitorium are lightened by the
| typical cheerfulness Of the patients
therein-a sunny lot, for the most
part-discussing with one another their
weights and fevers. They refer to the
sanitorium as the "san" and to their
temperatures as their "temps." Weigh
ing-in day at the Hill Farm is photo
graphically represented in an informa-
WV SPieooe, oao"iH6 SHo Joyo VI SHoSe
who have gained in flesh and the dis
couragement of those who have lost.
Like most plays "The Straw" is too
long, perhaps even for its especial au-
dience. But as an intelligent, exercise
in dramatic abnormality and as an ex-
hibition of unusually competent play
ing it is a most impressive evening in
the theater.