Mr. John Blair's Play.

The second of Mr. John Blair's course of modern dramas, "Ties" (Les Teuailles), by Paul Hervieu, was given at the Tremont Theatre, yesterday afternoon. The play itself is representative of the tendencies of the modern French drama, and, as in many of its class, the author has been led by the purely psychological interest of his plot to overdraw his principal character, Robert Fergan, and to suit the demands of his climax rather than to fit the climax to his character. With this climax still in view, he has brought in a period of ten years between the second and third acts, which even the long and rather tedious accounts at the beginning of the last act fall to bridge over. In spite of this break, however, the play still merits the highest praise for its subtlety of analysis, clearness of exposition and above all for the simplicity and directness of its method.

The interpretation was of an order rarely seen on a Boston stage. Mr. Blair's conception of Robert Fergan was virile and not unsympathetic, and his acting was finished to the highest degree. His support was of exceptional strength and evenness. Miss Kahn resembles Mrs. Fiske in the naturalness of her method; Mr. Lewis, as Michael Daverines, though a trifle stiff, and not altogether convincing, made the most of a thankless and difficult part; and Miss Harrington and Mr. Anderson played the colorless sister and brother-in-law with excellent taste. But, on the whole, the cast failed in only one task, which is a very difficult one for Anglo-Saxons; they did not preserve the Gallic quality of the characters they represented. Mr. Blair gave to Robert Fergan a truly Anglo-Saxon touch of blunt brutality, and Miss Kahn typified the American rather than the French wife's conception of liberty in the marriage relation. On the other hand, Mr. Anderson succeeded admirably in keeping the French flavor of his part, especially in the opening scene of the third act.