Page:The Dial (Volume 73).djvu/685

Rh skilfully differentiated; the sculptural effect slightly corrupted by machinery was visible in the movements of the separate Robots and in their massing. Mr Simonson's sets were beautiful, but more than that, they were wise, an improvement over his work in.

Concerning the production of I have only to say that Mr Ludwig Lewisohn has said nearly everything important in his review of the piece in The Nation. I do not share Mr Lewisohn's admiration for the naturalistic plays of Gerhardt Hauptmann, but I am sure he is right in assuming that if this play was put on at all it should have been put on properly—that is, as if it were a great work of the spirit of compassion made visible. It is certainly the last play on earth to be chosen as a vehicle for histrionic talent—a statement not necessarily all praise—and it was to that talent that it was wholly devoted. Miss Barrymore's technique was tremendously affecting—it was so notably wrong, so consistently hostile to the play, and so successful. She and everyone else played in as if it were some other play—one in which they had acted before and acted better. But I do not altogether blame them, for they seemed to be searching for a passion around which to build, they seemed to feel that the universal compassion which Mr Lewisohn invokes was frittered away in gusts of irritation or concupiscence; and Mr Lewisohn's translation did not help to make the play of this world. One still wonders whatever made Mr Hopkins want to do it, and to do it in this way.

A day after seeing I read James Elroy Flecker's Hassan, recently published by Alfred A. Knopf and, it is said, to be produced. I hope there will be no nonsense and no mistakes about the production of this piece of enchantment, and I hope that somewhere in Flecker's notes will be found an authorization for cutting a scene from the last act. To the producer, whoever he may be, I suggest reading a great many poems by Flecker and a close study of The King of Alsander, before the rehearsals begin.

The reviewer, having an apology to make, grows impersonal; he has not seen a play by all accounts as interesting as those mentioned: Mr Galsworthy's Loyalties. Returning to his proper person he declares that Miss Ina Claire is entirely dazzling and hopes that someone will someday write her a frivolous play. And a light one for Miss Tallulah Bankhead.