Faksimile

Text

Lebe
19. Der Ruf des ##ans box 24/5
WTOAA4 61
AMU
10
THE PLAY
Schnitzler’s Romantle Tragedy.
TIIE CALL OF IIFE, a play from the Ger
man of Arthur Schnitzler. English version
by Dorothy Donnelly. Directed by Dudley
Digges: zettings by Jo Mielzner; produced
the Actors' Theatre. At the Coniedy
Theatre.
Moser Egon Brecher
Mlarie Eva Le Galltenne
Edward Ralmer Douglass R.Dumbri'le
Dr. Schindler Thomas Chalmers
Mrs. Tont Richter. Allee John 1
Catherine Katberine Alexander
Max Derek Glynne
Sebastian Leete Stone
'he Celonel Herman Lieh
Albert Stanley Knlkhurst
Trene Rosalind Fuller
Upon all those who cherlshed life in
Arthur Schnitzler's The Call of Life.“
acted at the Comedy last evening, death
cast a shadow. The one who gained her
life at the cost of her father’s death
found life unbearable, while the one who
lired completely, with no thought of
the cost, found death no jot less swect. #.
As this no doubt indicates, the Schnitzler1“
who fashloned this romantic tragedy of 1#
cloying melancholy is not the erotle p.
profligate to whose castle the prurient1 ##
have all rushed hopefully. In The Callj #
of Life“ he has written as the senti-e.
mental philosopher, with a burgeoning of ##
poctry in his dialogue and symbolism. #
The piece comes off in a muted perfor¬ r
mance br the Actors' Theatre, who last
gear revlved Candlda“ and The Wila!1
Duck.“ The movement df thls rather
mawkish tragedy last evening was so#
slow that what seemed affecting in the 15
first act became tedicus in the last.
The play has been Ingenlously con-t
structed with a vagueness and softness
well suited to the theme. At the age of###
70, old Moser, an frascible, quarreisome
invalid, keeps his young daughter, Marie,
constantlg at his side in unwilllng at¬
tendance while life calls to her fromi#
outside. The particular life that calls#
to her most earnestly is that of Max,
a Lieutenant of the Blue Culrassiers, #
wilo are on the point vof leaving for!
battle. As it happens, the present march
into battle has more than the usual sig¬
nificance, for, to expiate the cowardice
of the Blue Cuirassiers in conflict thir¬
# years ago the young fellews of this C
gencration have sworn that none of #
Suich bravery, it ap-1s.
lcm nall retuin.
pears, will removc the blot on that regi¬
inent’s scutcheon. Of the cowardly sol¬
diers of thirty years ags the sole sur¬
vivor is this same msanthropie, old !
Moser, who by his own confession was
the one who led that igne 'nous retrent.
10
And whlle he still ellu. 46 his useless
life preserved in this shion, the Blue
Culrassiers are alre r marching to
1
their death. Marie hals him with a
sleeping draft. Nevertheless, the Blue#;
Cuirassiers die in battle and without s!
saving the day, and Marie does not at¬
tain to the full riehness of life after all.
Schnitzler has chosen to write this
tragedg in that most dangerous medium 1
ef symbollsm which ma; result in con¬
fusion as easily as it achieves poctic
restasg. And although the first act,
with old Moser snarling and taunting in
bis invalid’s chair, and with echoes
ringing occasionally in the siekroom
of fullblooded life outside—although this
first act brought the exhllaration it
tsveled, the second act did littie t0;