THE CRIMSON PLAYGOER--REVIEWS

Mr. Philip Hale, in reviewing for the Boston Herald, Ben Ami's performance in "Samson and Delilah" at the Wilbur, regrets that Ben-Ami did not have a better play. He complains of the theatricalness of many of the scenes and of the general lack of skill in the treatment of the theme. Most of his criticism is true enough; yet We felt at the time and do now that Ben-Ami would have had trouble to have found another vehicle so admirably suited to his talents in many respects as is this work Sven Lange.

In his appearance, in his diction, in his facial expressions--Bon-Aim first and last, looks, acts, and is the Slav; he seems to have stepped from a play of lsben or a novel of Tolstoi or Checkhov. To appear at his best he needed a play in which the environment would not be unnatural to him; In Samson and Delilah he found such a play, from curtain rise to curtain fall it is imbued with the spirit of the Slav. In its frequent, terribly effective appeals to the stage; in its lack of sentiment and its slow, careful development of the plot, it is distinctly the vehicle for Ben-Ami.

The plot is simply told. Peter Krum back, poot, who even at the beginning of the play is dangerously near the line which separates the genius from the insane, is not happy with his wife. But Her Philistines grates upon his sensitive soul; yet he is still strongly attracted by her in a physical way. But Dagmar, his wife, has come to the point where she can no longer endure her husband's whims and his scorn for worldly comforts. So she turns to Meyers Sophus, a prosperous, concerted; furniture dealer, and in him finds a welcome contrast to the vagaries of her talented husband. Peter, suspecting the worst but not daring to learn it, suffers all the tortures of the jealous husband, until, in a dramatic scene at a rehearsal of his play his uncertainty abruptly comes to an end. In the third act, he returns half-crazed after a sojourn of several days, to kill his wife and her fat lover. But he lacks-the courage or strength to shoot them in cold blood and ends by shooting himself.

As Mr. Hale Points out, the play could be strengthened in many places. The audience might be made to understand a little sooner the feelings that influenced Dagmar to turn to the gross furniture dealer; they might be permitted perhaps to appreciate the character of the plot a little sooner. It is almost as if the author developed his conception of the characters as he wrote the play. The characterization is never inconsistent; the author does not contradict himself but he seems to be so afraid that he will that the characters remain unformed until well on in the story.

Ben-Ami was all that he has been reputed to be somewhat crude still but tremendously effective and appealing to the sympathies. His face is remarkably capable of expression. It has been long since we have seen an sector with so expressive a month. Although his outburst at the end of the second act, when he assails the lover of his wife, is magnificently powerful and his reaction equally affecting. It is in the quieter scenes that Ben-Ami's talents are at their best. The opening tete-a-tete with his wife and the scene at the beginning of the third act when the now insane Petter talks with the frightened maid, are done with delightful command and vividness.

Of the supporting cast, Pauline Lord does not far below the star in ability. Although her voice tends to be a little tiresome, she portrays the half-frightened wife in true Ibsenesque style. Mr. Edward G. Robinson as the worldly but kindly and cultured director of the stage adds an effective bit of acting to the second act.

Just to demonstrate to the visiting cast that they were playing in Boston, the audience received the more serious parts of play with true Bostonian Litters. And when Ben-Ami ended by shooting himself through the stomach he was rewarded by generous guffaws.