Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-02-16

~ ANA BURNET, who has written
many short stories for maya
zines, now turns up as the
~ author of a sound little comedy,
1.-THE Boundary Line" about
the emotional difficulties OF snort
story writer who married a very con-
ventionap girl who didn't sympathize
with his tastes and the sort OF life that
appealed to him.
Allan Fenway was something of
poet and was constantly pulled on by
what, to save words, might be called the
gypsy trail" They had bought
farm in one of those neighborhoods
near New York where artists, writers
and others 60 to get quiet and fresh air
and escape from the town. Here
Dorothea Fenway hoped to have home
at last, to dig in-behind her fence,
both literal and figurative-and be cor
rect and respectable"
But their first child died and after tnat
Dorothea didn't want children-indeed,
she didn't want and seemed TO fear
her husbands love itself. A good-fellow
newspaper girl, who had loved Allan
for years without bothering him or any
body else about 1t, told him in a burst
of impotence at the mess that he was
making-or that was being made-ot
his life that what Dorothea really fear
ed in Allan was the poet in him, That
was something she couldn't capture or
Dorothea was setting about to kill 1t.
It must have been difficult for Doro-
thea, too, for a more or less moody hus-
band like hers was none too easy Tor
woman of her sort to live with. And
/ then along came Peter Sturgis, a Wen-
TODD, correct and successful lawyer,
who had a mind like watch-as one
of their friends put it, "he winds 1t up
in the morning and 1t stays running all
day" Sturgis bought country place
nearby and fell madly in love with
Dorothea.
Such, briefly, is the situation with
/ which Mr.. Burnet starts a story which
he works out to at least one of its
/ logical conclusions. The play is lack
| ing in that glib theatricalism which so
| often covers up the lack of real strug-
gle such as faces everyday people in
everyday life, and many may hnd it a
bit talky.
But there is real stun in it and such
honest and genuine acting as Otto
| Kruger gives the writer-hushand's part
is rare on Broadway. It was fine,
imaginatively felt and altogether just
right performance.
| y y X
! TT is sort of supermovie, melodrama
de luxe, to which the very real
gifts of Miss Katherine Cornell and an
excellent company and all the rich
furnishing and suave lighting of a Gill
bert Miller production are devoted in
Margaret Aver Barnes and Edward
Sheldon's new play "Dishonored Lady"
The heroine has wealth, social posi-
ton, brains, but, underneath all her
other qualities and from time to time
yelling to the surface. an ungovernable
appetite for men. She falls for an
Argentine cabaret singer, and later
murders him. Most Of the piece might
better be taken as straight criminal
melodranna, perhaps, than as anything
In the nature of study In morbid psy-
chology, and yet Madeleine Cary's be-
hayior Is So pathological that the
references to heredity. It seems that
her mother had a similar appetite and,
although situated to lead happy and
normal life, drifted down from one
more or less unworthy lover to another.
| Miss Cornell gives glamour, authority
and emotional eloquence to the un-
| sympathetic part-it Is easily one OF the
finest performances of the Winter. All
the other parts are we'll taken It makes
can't be blamed, perhaps, for feeling
! that he is seeing, finely played and
deliberately upholstered, ON thing
rather more in the Hollywood vein than
usually associated with the Empire
: Theater.
nONALD OGDEN STEWART, hither-
to known as writer of parody,
offers in Rebound" his first full-length
play, with the leading part taken by
Miss Hope Williams, who came to the
professional stage a season or two ago
by way of amateur theatricalS, in par