Critical Moments

Nathan Zatkin, who made his debut as a producer by presenting at the Little Theatre a revival of Ibsen’s drama “The Lady From the Sea” took liberties with the original script of the dour Norwegian. The young producer used his blue pencil and interposed a few Broadway touches with the idea in mind of lightening, if possible, this very, very serious exposition about the lady who thought she knew what she wanted.

FOR IBSEN FANS ONLY

“The Lady From the Sea” is for genuine Ibsen fans only. It is one of the dramatist’s later efforts, written when what little sense of humor he possessed had been dried up by adversity. It has always been considered as one of his weakest. To a modern audience brought up on Freud, Adler and the other prying fellows who dig into our subconscious minds, the play will sound terribly dated. And it is exceedingly verbose.

For the sake of those who skipped “The Lady” when they studied their Ibsen in college, this is to inform you that it is a play about a woman who when a young girl had an affair with a robust sailor. It seems that they had loved one another with an Ibsesque intensity and had entered into some sort of mystical marriage. The sailor left the lady and she married a physician, a widower with two daughters. She should have been happy but she could not get over her first love. The more her husband urged her to forget, the more closely did she grasp at her past. Finally the husband gave in and told his wife that she was free to go off with her sailor. Immediately, or I should say, after a great deal of dialogue, the lady found that she didn’t want her tar and decided to stay with her husband and be a good wife and a mother to her step-daughters.

WELL ACTED

Mary Hone as Eilida, the “Lady,” gives a thoroughly fine performance. She is pretty, illusive and sensitive and breathes into a difficult part, life and color. Moffat Johnson as the husband is a fine foil for Miss Hone. He plays his part with restraint and dignity. Margaret English and Rose Kean, as the step-daughters, fit their roles and perform with gusto. The settings by Donald Ooenslager are among the finest that talented artist has done.

“The Lady From the Sea” is interesting because it demonstrates how far we have come since those dismal days when Ibsen was considered a daring pioneer in the realms of psychology.

LOVE KILLS A PLAY

It is necessary to say that “Love Kills” is a play-otherwise you might suspect that it is a joke calculated to rile New York audiences. This is to warn you that it is, or was when these lines were written, playing at the Forrest Theatre. It is the work of Ida Lublenski Ehrlich and tells the sad story of a girl forced into marrying a modern man she doesn’t love so that her father’s bank may be saved. The price paid is a cool million. Of course our heroine loves a younger and poorer lad but he becomes tired of waiting and very sensibly goes off with another woman, which is about the only sensible thing in the play. The audience was unusually cruel. The tittering started before the actors really got started and increased in volume until at the end of the second act, you could hardly hear what was going on in front of you-and a good thing, too. “Love Kills” is a worse play than “Late Wisdom” which opened and closed last week.