people. Following rigidly the one of the two possible principles which I like best, I should probably not go to any one theatre in town, except the Irving Place, more than once a year. In this, as in other things, the convenient solution is compromise. Compromising, therefore, let us begin by mentioning some things in which few of our readers are interested. Certainly, no new play of the last month has been as worthy of attention as the revival of Sodom's Ende at the Irving Place. It had not been given there for a long time before, except one Sunday night, when, on account of the absurdity of the law, the curtain was not dropped during the whole evening, and other precautions were taken to make it a "sacred concert." Sudermann has not had a more vital theme than this, nor probably has any one of his subjects been better treated. The company of this year appeared at its best, especially finished and real work being done by Hedwig Lange, Franz Kierchner and, in the difficult leading rôle, by Adolph Zimmermann. Sudermann's latest play, by the way, Johannisfeuer, which has just been acted in London, has for some reason not been given by Mr. Conreid, nor has his Johannes. Both are admirable works of

ACT II.

art, but Johannisfeuer has a more poetic charm. The feeling is so innate and unobtrusive that an idiot German, writing from Berlin to the Staats-Zeitung, and finding no moral in the play, thought that it must be intended to illustrate the effect of accident on human life. If the superiority of the German drama brings out much of that kind of intelligence, we may be more patient under New York criticism. Other things of value have been Minna Von Barnhelm at the Irving Place, in which Miss Lange and Mr. Kierchner showed the qualities which our actors ought to learn; the School for Scandal at the Murray Hill, which, in spite of a performance wholly lacking in the brilliancy so loudly called for by the play, put the leading things of the month to shame; and, finally, two little plays from the French, one of them a farce, probably sketched by Molière, which Mr. Franklin Sargent, who has a taste for good drama, gave in a matinée at the Empire Theatre. As these lines are written there are in the New York theatres just two things worth a sane observer's time and money, and neither is new: Mrs. Dane's Defence, at the Empire. and When We Were Twenty-one, at the Knickerbocker. Why would it not

be better to pass over the rest in silence? However, it would take an abnormal amount of courage. Of these two, with their various merits, Henry Esmond's play is much more vital. It is more simple, human and moving, and it has the remarkable quality of being as strong in the fourth act as in any part. It is more a living work of art than anything by Jones, Pinero or Shaw.

Among those new plays which the public thinks fit to talk about, Unleavened Bread offers more inducement to cerebration than any of the others. Its practical Its practical success in New York was not fairly tested; as Mr. Tyler, like Miss Crosman before him, had a row with the manager of the new Savoy Theatre. It is an unmistakably bad play; but the novel itself is so penetrating, comprehensive and mature that the drama borrowed a faint dignity by reflection. It would be possible to found an admirable comedy of

American life on part of the book; but Leo Ditrichstein, who mapped out the drama, crowded into it most of the incidents of the book without giving sufficient meaning or completeness to any of them. The third act, in which something of a climax is made by Flossie Williams's outburst to Selma, is rather dramatic; but it lost in the representation through the total lack of natural feeling exhibited by Miss Elizabeth Tyree, who did the less intense parts of the play rather well. A friend of mine, professionally connected. with the stage, scolded me for treating Unleavened Bread badly, saying that a manager who would put on a drama made from a novel which meant something ought to be encouraged, at a time when. such things as Janice Meredith, Richard Carvel and When Knighthood Was in Flower were rampant in the land. This makes a rather plausible position, especially when combined with the fact that

I was also scolded for treating leniently this last-mentioned money-maker. situation is certainly a difficult one. When Knighthood Was in Flower has no intrinsic value whatever, but it is the liveliest and most entertaining of the bad species with which we have lately been deluged. Julia Marlowe's acting also, while it is made up wholly of detail-too much detail is so skilful, technically, that it would be impossible to name against it any more positive fault than restlessness. On the other hand, you have in Unleavened Bread a sound study ruined. It might be better constantly to point out the emptiness of such things as Knighthood; but when one has seen many specimens of a miserable breed he naturally goes easy on the least offensive one. So it might be well to praise Mr. George Tyler, who produces so many plays, like In a Balcony, The Moment of Death, and The Children of the Ghetto, that other managers would shy at, for his intelligence in liking Unleavened Bread; but the critic's main duties are to the public, whatever his sympathy with the difficulties and accomplishments of managers, actors or playwrights; and why

anybody should care to see Unleavened Bread, when he can get so much more from reading the novel, it would not be easy to state. This doubt about the amount of praise and the intensity of blame that should be given to a production, even when one is quite sure what he thinks of it, need not afflict the observer of Under Two Flags at the Garden Theatre. There is the opportunity for

good, solid, eighteen-karat "roast." Blanche Bates acts well, although not as well as she has acted in better playsanother illustration of a general truth. Somebody also has made one of the most successful stage illusions ever seen, in a sand-storm in the desert; but the play itself is one of the worst machines, one of the most vulgar and stupid pieces of hack work seen here since the same author's Conquerors. Not that there is anything in it "to object to," as people say, as there was in The Conquerors, but from absolute lack of any redeeming trait. Ouida is yellow enough in all conscience, and her ideals of life could hardly be shared in front of the kitchen; but she has talent, so that the passages of direct narrative in the novel redeem

those of analysis and description. The play has not a single trace of any merit to be found in the novel or elsewhere.

Almost equally worthless, almost equally deserving of bad-mannered dismissal, is Lovers' Lane, by Clyde Fitch, at the Manhattan Theatre. This author has recently shown some of his best and some of his worst work. Why, on the high road to success, he should be willing to publish such a pitiful hash of old jokes and old situations as Lovers' Lane, is as hard to understand as it was to tell why he was willing to write the soul out of Sappho. American theatre-goers are naturally interested in him, because at about thirty-five years of age he has been so prolific and so successful. Four of his plays are running in New York as this is written; it has just been announced that an actor is to star in the Cowboy and the Lady; and the other Fitch play produced by Nat Goodwin, Nathan Hale, is now touring the country. Max Beerbohm, who is already the best dramatic critic in England next to William Archer, made some remarks lately about the importance of age in judging a man's work. He held that the author's actual age did not matter; it was the length of time that he had been writing, thirty years being sufficient to exhaust all that one man had to say. On this principle, or any other, Mr. Fitch has still plenty of time ahead, but what he has been doing since Nathan Hale does not seem to promise all that we have a right to hope from him. Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines, now running at the Garrick, is an amusing comedy, without much of the silliness which is usually to be found in the author's plays, and with a steady, mild interest of story as well as of comedy; and excellent acting is done in it by Edwin Stevens and H. Reeves Smith. But, after all, it does not amount to much, and it does not throw any lights ahead for the author's future. The Climbers, at the Bijou Theatre, has a more serious story, but it does not stick to its story. Perhaps half of the time is given up to things connected with the theme, and the rest to various stage tricks and ornaments, some amusing, some too trivial for even idle pastime. Greater artistic sincerity would have caused the story to dominate more. It would, in other words, have given the play more meaning and

made it more a comedy of American life, in the sense in which Unleavened Bread is a novel of American life. The foundation of a new stock company is an event of interest, and Robert Edeson and Clara Bloodgood and, to a somewhat less degree, Frank Worthing and Minnie Dupree, do admirable work; but the future of the company artistically is not what it might be if the manager were not also an actress, and an actress of, at most, moderate ability. Mr. Fitch's third new play this year, as already mentioned, is the worst thing he has done in years, if not ever; and it would be a relief to know that it was written a long time agoa relief in one sense, but not in another; for why should it be produced now? This treatment of a young American who is doing so much, and has done some strong work, may seem unkind; but it is, perhaps, justified by the belief that he can never write a play which shall enter a higher class than those which he has already done, unless his writing shows a wholly different attitude toward life and toward art. Norman Hapgood.