Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-12-22

n M 1CHAEL AND MARY, the
LS M new play by A. A. Milne,
wv who comes as near as any,
4 Il body to filling the place in
the theater held by Barrie
a generation ago, is one of the most
civilized pieces now on view in New
York, and seems likely to be as popular
as were Mr.. Mines earlier plays, THE
Perfect Alibi" and 1.-THE Ivory Door,"
Mr.. Milne, as everybody knows, writes
ehildren's rhymes and stories and a
superior sort of melodrama with equal
facility, but his characteristic danger,
that of dropping a little too thickly
into whimsy, is only brushed here and
there In the new play, which Is charm
ing throughout and some of the time
quite as exciting as if its author dealt
in gunner, finger prints, "the body"
and rough language, instead of express
ing. in lines which are always a pleasure
both to the ear and the intelligence, the
gentler warnings and troubles of the
human heart.
On its surface, the play is the story
Of romance which began between two
young folks in the British Museum, the
peculiar nature Of which consists in the
fact that its principals are guilty of a
technical bigamy. The girl had married
an adventurous cad, who deserted her
and disappeared And when her real
mate comes along, the two decide to go
ahead and marry and take q chance on
what may happen in the future. The
husband returns, years afterward, and
threatens blackmail, and, dropping dead
in their house, puts them In a position
to be suspected of murder.
The mere outline of the story and
of how they hid their secrets and kept
the beauty of their lives and their hap
pinesS gives no notion of what Mr..
Mines imagination and tenderness
make of 1t, nor of the warmth and
fneness which is contributed to it by
all Of the players. Miss Edith Barrett
was just about as right as could be as
Mary, and Henry Hull scarcely less sue
into the picture, in particular. perhaps,
Miss Alice Belmore Cliffe as the slightly
Dickensy landlady of the lodging house
in Islington.
THE Civic Repertory's production of
Tolstoy's THE Living Corpse" as
compared with that given last year by
the Reinhardt company. with Alexander
Moissi. is as skim milk to cream, and
yet with all its weaknesses and with all
the technical scrappiness of the play
itself as contrasted with the bright little.
tight little pieces which are turned out
by the dozens in any New York Winter
how curiously interesting and nourish-
ing!
1.-THE Living Corpse" was written, of
course, long after the great days of
War and Peace" after Tolstoy's Con
version" when he had withdrawn from
the world and was obsessed with trying
to md some meaning and aim to hui
man existence.
He still created characters and told
a story-rather than simply arguing or
preaching as he was wont to do in those
later days-but they we're the charac-
tiers, and 1t was the story, not of a
young novelist, excited about the inter-
relations OF people in a tremendous
game or fight IN which he was still TAX
ing a more or less active part and
looked on, so TO say, as a going concern.
but OF patriarch to whom all the old
rowdydow was largely silly, when not
actually base.
In Fedya. the well born Russian gen.
tleman, who left his correct and super
hcially charming young wife to spend
his time carousing with gypsies and
listening to tsigane music, who found
IN the simple and sensual devotion of
Masha, the gypsy girl, a reality and
beauty he had never found in his con-
ventional marriage; who died" and be-
came a living corpse to set his wife
free, rather than descend to the lies
and vulgar subterfuge that would have
given her an easy divorce, we have, of
course, not merely the objective story
OF certain sort Of man, but some
thing Of Tolstoy's own revolt against
the upper-class Russians brand Of