Page:The Dial (Volume 73).djvu/155

Rh of their unspoken thoughts; at the cabaret the technique is precisely that of portions of Ulysses. The penitents at confession each repeat a distorted fragment of the protagonist’s experience until he can bear it no longer and, gathering them to his heart, makes the confession for humanity.

There is with this an intermingling of ecstasy and irony which is corrosive; the lightning flashes of the separate scenes are dazzling and terrifying; the coup de foudre and the coup de théâtre coincide to leave one appalled at the bitterness with which trivial and tawdry things have been invested. The one enduring sense of satisfaction is in the perfection of method; the sheer swift intelligence, the fine sense of proportion are, for once at least, their own reward.

Mr Frank Reicher played the amazing part of the cashier magnificently and produced the play almost as finely. The cast was excellent with one deplorable exception. Miss Helen Westley after being utterly distinguished in the first scene was unscrupulously bad in the last. For her own sake and for the sake of the Guild, if nothing can persuade her of the dignity of the work she is doing, her vicious habit of attracting attention to herself instead of to the play ought to be curbed. Lee Simonson's settings, without reservations exquisite, might well be taken as a model of appropriate severity.

The second programme of the has greater loveliness than the first, less pure fun. A triumph of character, not for Mr Balieff alone, makes the second no less than the first a prime event in intelligent entertainment. G. S.