New Plays in Boston

Here is a play with "a punch." Nor is it the first of that sort which its author. Mr. Paul Armstrong, has done. Earlier this season we saw his "Deep Purple," while "The Greyhound," his latest product, is a current New York success. The offering at the Plymouth is more than generously supplied with thrills, and yet, on the whole, is so skilfully constructed and acted as to rise very high above the conventional play of the type.

Through the intercession of a girl whom he once befriended, Valentine is pardoned from Sing Sing and begins life anew. After three years, having now become a bank official he is tracked by an enemy whose wish it is to get him back to prison on an old charge. Valentine succeeds in having himself believed an entirely different person when he is called upon to use his ability as a safe-breaker to release a child from the bank vault. This he does in a very intense scene, thus disclosing his identify. His enemy, however, wilfully allows him to escape the one touch of unadulterated melodrama in the play and the final curtain sees Valentine and his sweet-heart happy again.

The action is helped by considerable comedy. The piece is capitally played, Mr. Warner as Valentine being particularly well cast. Even the "bits" were unusually well done. "Blinky" Davis and "Dick, the Rat," conviet-pals of Valentine's, were played by Edward Bayes and Charles Craham respectively in so realistic a fashion that each was accorded a small ovation on his exit. By and large: a gripping play very much worth while.