The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-10-30
Of the
THEATRE
BETWEEN TWO WORLDS, a play
in nine scenes by Elmer Rice;
produced and staged by Elmer
Rice, at the BeIascO Theatre.
Reviewed by
LEON ALEXANDER

MR.. RICE's new play, Between
ln Two Worlds" is a mature, 1T
crate (and I don't mean literary,
and even subtle work; in my opir-
ion, his finest to date. 1t is fault
lessly cast, beautifully acted,
smoothly directed; the setting is eff
fective and servceable, though inn
paired by being placed on too
shallow stage.
The play is laid on the first class
deck of a transatlantic liner on
which we meet a boatload of sue
cessful, upper class Americans.
Park Avenue debutante and her
mother; a young advertising eXecu-
tive out of Harvard; movie queen;
the poetic descendant of a banker
ruined by the crash, on his way to
Bulgaria to become a legation Sec
Rotary; bootlegger; a middle
western business man and his plain
middle-aged wife; a couple of nou-
veau-rich, ETC.; and two Russians:
the ex-Princess Elena Mihailovna
Galitzin, and the movie director
and BolSheYik, Kovalev.
The ex-princeSs has a Bolshevik-
phobia, and the presence of Kova-
lev on the same boat is a problem
for her two American friends, who
try as hard as they can to prevent
meeting of the two Russians.
Miss Bowen, however, a younger
person at loose ends, is fascinated
by the BolsheVik, his directness, his
intellectual aliveness.
Her weak loyalty to the ex-
princess does not prevent her from
making the acquaintance of Kova-
lev; and one night, a particularly
bright and romantic moonlit night.
On the following evening tbs
terrible Kovalev who has chosen
this boat for this purpose, has his
reckoning with the Princess.
Against the fearful story of the
lady's woes, he unfolds tale of
oppression, cruelty, the slaughter of
his people by hers that had gone
on for generations. The princess
gentleness and breeding disappear.
She spews gutter words at Kova-
lev. And in the most dramatic
scene of the play, the Bolshevik
slaps the Princess.
THIS, BADLY, is statement of the
plot; within this story, Mr.. Rice
has drawn the conflict between two
conceptions of life, between two
worlds-the Communist and the
bourgeois. This he has done, partly
directly, in conversations between
the debutante and the Bolshevik,
partly by indirection, through his
drawing of character.
Mr.. Rice has never yet written so
incisively, with such fresh observa-
ton, nor drawn his characters so
fully in all their facets. He has at
last replaced the physical excite
nent of some of his earlier plays
for an intellectual excitement; and
his play represents great stride
forward in social clarity over the
befuddled WE the People"
Miss Rachel Hartzell's portrayal
of the girl Illuminated the part; she
found accents Of truth and sus-
tanned sincerity for even the most
trivial moment. Mr.. Joseph Shild-
kraut's Kovalev had a tendency to
become a caricature; however, Mr..
Is a particular communist, and
movie director to boot. And Mr..
Rice and Mr. Shildkraut succeed in
projecting the mans idealism. his
intense drive, his purposefulness,
his ruthlessness that is bone
and sinew of feeling of young,
unleashed strength.
I HOPE that all the above will not
1 be misunderstood by our read
ers to mean that Mr.. Rice has
written revolutionary, or even
militant play. He has still long
way to co. and we cannot be sure
that the road along which he has
started Is our road. He is still of
the breed Of Nation" liberals who
concede that Bolshevism may be a
good thing for Russia; he sees even
clearly enough the bankruptcy of
capitalism; he realizes the vast sub
merged power of the masses which
the October Revolution has let
loose in the U. S. S. r.; but he
SHES at the use of force. and he
is hopeful that changes may be
made in the structure of American
capitalism without a revolution.
Mr.. Rice holds on to certain
values, bourgeois values, that he
fears the proletarian revolution will
destroy: gentleness, humaneness.
urbanity, tolerance He doesn't
stop to consider that these qualities
are practically non-existent in a
capitalist world, in which the philo-
sophy of dog eat dog prevails; that
if they make their appearance at
all, it is only in some small, closed
circles in which economic compe-
tition is temporarily latent. And
even while his debutante was speak
ing of these American qualities of
fairness kindness - The movie
queen was viciously abusive to her
Negro maid.
Stating his conflict in intellectual
terms; setting a Park Avenue debu-
tsnte against Bolshevik placing in
opposition not two classes, but two
PHILOSOPHERS, Mr.. Rice plays his
drama in vacuum.
The play is also something of
tour de force; it is quite stunt
to write of the present conflict be-
tween two worlds-a conflict which
may soon turn into a war to the
death--in terms of high comedy.