The Play
Skinner, R. Dana
October 13, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 557 THE...
...Seven lives are not worth the sacrifice...
...One suspects, too, that the poisoned VeneREV...
...558 THE COMMONWEAL October 13, 1926 This, I hope, will be quite enough information to save BOOK S you the trouble or the disappointment of seeing A Woman Disputed...
...This particu- is that of Adam, canon of Bremen Cathedral...
...the play extols her as a heroine...
...The two articles which The Commonweal is pub- tion of plants...
...It employs a large cast, several his own...
...When the continuity is not marking by a complete change in body tension, walk, voice and speech...
...But as Ann Harding, long classed as one of our Leif the Lucky, by Clara Sharpe Hough...
...Hough's Street, and other books of poems...
...Hampden, but against all similar efforts...
...nd for this auction system of self-sacrifice, direction, that of Mr...
...Freydis is overdrawn in the peculiarly A NOTHER musical comedy about the little countrgirl Nordic antic of going berserk, but even this improves on the who-this time in a dream-goes to New York-for a historic Frevdis, who killed five women with an ax...
...without traditions for comparison, and without the check of Hampden as Marius Rufinus, scion of a Roman family who at least a co-director, he can only expect to find his defects has become the leader of a gang of thieves, is seen in a bewildermagnified and his natural gifts undeveloped...
...fault of too lenient direction...
...leave them merely a drab and lifeless background for his But in all this pageantry and display, one looks in vain for own work...
...the habit of overacting her emotional scenes...
...Leif bucks into certain hard facts of back-stage existence which is kept pagan for the plot's sake-actually he was Christian decide her to accept the original offer of the little white cot- before the voyage...
...would have been a much relied so greatly on the inherent interest of his main theme more apt title for this thoroughly unreal and pretentious that he has forgotten the necessity-for the theatre at least- melodrama by Denison Clift, in which the important situation of investing this theme with a unified point of view or living is based on a story of Maupassant's...
...ma azine Pan...
...ocrities, or else, for so failing to bring out their abilities as to The action takes place in Jerusalem...
...Moreover, his charhim to make mistakes either in judgment about plays or in the acters are not alive, either in language or action...
...But in a new play, what is really a great economy of scenic material...
...never obtruded, but athrob beneath the broken Honeymoon Lane surface of the story...
...HARRY McGuIRE is a young playwright and one of the editors of the estimation, uncalled for...
...AUL CROWLEY is a literary critic for the American reviews...
...Certainly, Mr...
...The Immortal Thief, by Tom Barry...
...the highest things in the theatre...
...culture in various American publications...
...MARY CAROLYN DAVIES is the author of Youth Riding, Drums in Our meanwhile was preserved by Celtic monks...
...If they were elim- have preached naught but a simple and contrite heart, but fell inated, no one would notice the difference...
...Missionaries not only preach Christ, they worship Him with CONTRIBUTORS handiwork as well, and it is documented history that the Greenland monks harnessed volcanic springs for winter propagaTHEODORE F. MCMANUS of Detroit, Michigan, is the nationally celebrated advertising man...
...It is quite possible for playwriting we have seen for many long days...
...Standing as individual jokes, they have in the characterization of the lugubrious Gunnlaug, who "might nothing to do with the play as a whole...
...stage career against the advice of her country sweetheart, and Historically, the novel takes only legitimate liberties...
...and to take the place of sensitive flowing action...
...In a review of a hundred thousand American troops...
...New York: The promising young actresses, is in the cast, it would be courteous Century Company...
...This is no time for through multiplicity instead of simplicity...
...For this the playwright is chiefly to blame...
...pardonable to misinterpret sacramental religion, but Mrs...
...MARY KOLARS is a contributor of articles and literary criticism to the Trygvasson, who converted Leif, received civilization and the magazines...
...Barry's...
...After seven hours of debate, she is still adamant sible...
...ELEANOR CUSTIS SHALLCROSS is a young poet whose work has appeared hob with the country until Saint Augustine got at them...
...FREDERICK H. MARTENS, author of 1001 Nights of Opera, is a writer to the strong-arm methods of a viking keel-boat, is, in my on musical and literary subjects...
...Lowell Sherman, who is the Mrs...
...October 13, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 557 THE PLAY By R. DANA SKINNER The Immortal Thief Mannerisms, old-fashioned heroics, and attitudinizing have crowded into his work until at times it becomes almost a WALTER HAMPDEN has opened his new season by a spectacular production-scenically--of a new play called travesty of itself...
...grading way of trying to buy a few laughs, that wav has yet In the imaginative field, the novel goes more astray, notably to be discovered...
...and to be both the rest go if she will yield to his affections...
...One can also add, ing array of costumes, ranging from brigand chief, throuah after repeated views of the Hampden company, that he seems Roman patrician, gilded Roman officer, prisoner in chains and to have a veritable genius for surrounding himself with meditunic, to the last moment of his suspension on the thief's cross...
...to add a word about her work...
...At a time when our modern stage is being drenched fortunately, a confusing element, a needless distraction, in with the most puerile trash, when we need urgently to sumwhat might have been a simple and stirring study of one mon the best traditions of the past to guide us in restating fine man's character...
...Olaf affairs...
...That is because the author, in his hurry to place before us a panorama, has not dwelt long or lovingly enough on _7 Woman Disputed any one individual to make him grow before our eyes, take on personal qualities, or engross our interest...
...it has gloriously vital a character, he would be poor indeed if he incidental music composed especially by Elliott Schenck ; and could not sweep it across the footlights by using the oldest it attains many scenic effects of extraordinary beauty with known methods of the romantic actor...
...There is management of his enterprise...
...Hampden holds a great gift for He has yielded to the temptation-all too common to the us-of scholarship, of honesty, of more than average ability, writers of semi-historical plays-to create the sense of reality and, above all, of high-minded devotion...
...She is acquiring Blessed Sacrament accepted in a way he little bargained for...
...She does for a hundred thoupoint...
...But it is false coloring to emphasize tage on honeymoon lane...
...That even the most elementary interest in what this or that character is the real tragedy of a production such as The Immortal Thief...
...The lyrics Frevdis's relapse and the Vinelander's sacrifice to Njord...
...Each mistake counts, not alone hardly a moment, for example, when one is held in suspense by against Mr...
...will do...
...Dowling, who, as co-author of the piece, need never have Hough might know her Norse missionary was not as she paints written them in in the first place...
...Barry has W HAT PRICE VIRTUE...
...The strained He is, to use a sea-going metaphor, brought up all standing beintensity of her voice becomes monotonous, with the quality of a fore the blast of God's retributive justice, and lets what is song rather than purposeful human speech...
...So much for the book...
...It is a sincere play in We must remember that in Shakespearean roles, to which intention, relating in episodic and somewhat disjointed form, the 1Ir...
...Also, the Celts are always "the naked Kelts," lishing, the first of which appears in this issue, form the introductory and it is reiterated that the "Northmen brought civilization chapter of a book to be issued soon by the Devin-Adair Company...
...and of two lar type of gag joke is becoming almost standard in many of extant copies of the saga of Eric the Red, one was set down the musical shows, and if there is any cheaper or more de- by a priest...
...It is put the responsibility for their inclusion squarely up to Mr...
...If ever a fine natural talent, coupled with intelligent sand abstract lives- what she would not do for six immediate purpose, needed to submit itself to the discipline of outside lives about her...
...Hampden does at the present moment...
...And postures begin left of his heathen code's running rigging go by the run...
...EILEEN DUGGAN is a prominent Catholic poet of New Zealand Faith while pirating in Britain, which had been civilized, HELENE MULLINS, JESSICA POWERS and JAMES E. TOBIN are frequent Roman and Christian, for, all told, about four centuries before contributors of poetry to current publications...
...In it, Mr...
...A French peasant girl eyes from which to view it...
...Hampden's own acting has fallen to an incredibly low be saved, her decision falters...
...A century later, Pope Paschal Hart writes them!-but the music and dancing are decidedly II appointed a "bishop of Greenland and Vineland in partibus good ; so good that you wish they could make you forget the infidelium," and it is relevant to say that we are indebted to inexcusable vulgarities that creep in from time to t;me on the the Church for what we know of Vineland : the earliest record hackneyed theme of male perverts and the like...
...Otherwise, the book is agreeably free from the "Nordic complex," and Leif The Lucky vividly recalls the period by...
...The colonel offers to let all impossible for him to be both at the same time...
...We have here more the elements of Alsace, during the great war, is put by the author in the of a pageant than of a play, of a tableau rather than of a awkward predicament of choosing between surrendering her drama...
...drama in modern terms, Mr...
...As a picture of the times, that is absurd...
...Leif finds his sacrilegious offer to the White Christ in the But in another respect, she has failed badly...
...But occasions do arise-and What is e~ idently intended to give the cumulative effect of this is one of them-when utter frankness has its constructive atmosphere, struggle, degeneracy and redemption becomes, unpurpose...
...starred member of the cast, remains-Lowell Sherman...
...ROBERT SENCOURT is an English journalist and writer on international to Britain...
...JOSEPH M. EGAN is professor of Church history and librarian at Saint Joseph's Seminary of Dunwoodie, New York...
...In this play, she transforms herself, passions, humbly accepts the discipline of the Faith through successfully, into a peasant, partly by make-up, and even more the loyalty of a woman...
...Hebrideans were naked despite the north winds, it was because R. M. PATTERSON, JR., poet and critic, is an expert on agricultural cooperation...
...PAUL DENT, a Jesuit scholasitic, is one of the seventeen American Leif's ancestors and their German cousins came and played Jesuits now on their mission field of Patna, India...
...Hampden has dedicated himself so freely, he has, at least, the benefit of traditional interpretations with which to compare supposed life of the repentant thief during the days immediately preceding the Crucifixion...
...This is distinctly this tale of his soul's voyage is well contrasted against the not a good sign, and one can only hope that it is partly the stark tragedy that finally brings the viking to his knees...
...Hough excels in depicting feminine psychology...
...In this case, we can to talk of candles, and prayers and penances instead...
...But it is almost one of half a dozen prisoners...
...If Mrs...
...The never matter anyhow-since Gilbert died or unless Lorenz discoverers were Christian...
...tian cup is symptomatic of the "loose Latins" delusion ; and the HENRIETTA DANA SKINNER is the author of Espirito Santo, and other sneer at the discipline abroad Columbus's caravel, compared books...
...Hampden's last season, I tried to point out-always in the situation is quite unimportant-belonging as it does to the the role of a deep admirer of his sincerity and idealism-the realms of the tritest of melodrama-but the motivation of obstacle he was setting to his own possible achievements in her choice is, to say the least, one of the most absurd bits of trying to be both actor and director...
...a play...
...time for the somewhat cloudy soul-searching of the Nordics, So far as that makes for good acting, she has done well, the action is vigorous, and there is a nearly epic climax, when also doing herself a good service in establishing her versatility...
...Hampden has now proved its impossi- in her refusal...
...Not only is the acting of the whole when one of the prisoners, a French spy posing as a priest, company distressingly amateurish-in the sense of completely tells her that if he can escape and give the needed information failing to give the illusion of reality or genuine feeling-but to the attacking Americans, some hundred thousand lives will Mr...
...Hitherto she has appeared as IN AN authentic setting of the discovery of America from the embodiment of refinement, the methods of type-casting Greenland in the eleventh century, the story treats of the naturally leading to this use of her strange ash-blond beauty spiritual regeneration of a Norse barbarian, who, conquering and her poignant voice...
...Characters, many of them familiar in history, are It is neither pleasant, nor, on the surface, constructive to brought in, they speak lines meant to be charged with feeling, make comment of this sort on a man of such rare devotion to but somehow falling with unreality on the ear, and then depart...
...Even in Cyrano he was not dealing with entirely new material-quite aside from the fact that in playing so members being called upon for more than one part...
...Brenda's waiting, a mixture of patience and subtlety, is admirably handled...
...him...
...More likely he had a chant that could pipe down a nor'wester and a rare knack at the Yule-ale brewing...
...The manner of creating Mr...
...2.00...
...This girl is a good actor to be a good director as well...
...But bility in his own case...
...of the Northmen...
...Otherwise they -star actor and director at once is, I am sure, entirely impos- will be shot...
...own virture to a German colonel or endangering the lives of But the fault is not entirely Mr...
Vol. 4 • October 1926 • No. 23
