The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays Part 79

+Stanley Houghton+

THE DEAR DEPARTED: Somewhat precipitate haste for advantage in dividing grandfather's effects is fittingly rebuked.

In _Dramatic Works_, vol. i. French, New York; Constable, London.

THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT: A mother finds being an "imaginary invalid" excellent for checkmating her daughter's plans, but inconveniently in the way of her own.

_Ibid._

+Laurence Housman+

RETURN OF ALCESTIS: A modern poetic view of the spirit of Alcestis returning to Admetus after her sacrifice and rescue.

Edwin Arlington Robinson has also handled this theme lately.

French.

BIRD IN HAND: A pedantic old scholar is mysteriously plagued by an illusion of faery, but in time conquers the obsession.

French.

BETHLEHEM: A nativity play.

Macmillan.

THE CHINESE LANTERN: Pleasantly effective scenes in a Chinese studio.

Sidgwick and Jackson.

+William Dean Howells+

THE SLEEPING CAR; THE REGISTER; THE MOUSE TRAP; THE ALBANY DEPOT; THE GARROTERS:

Amusing but somewhat worn farces, several of them introducing the voluble Mrs. Roberts and her family.

+Henrik Ibsen+

AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE: A scientist who insists on making known, and setting to work to remedy, the evils and wrongs of his community has to reckon with the people; compare The Mob, by John Galsworthy.

Boni and Liveright.

THE DOLL'S HOUSE: Nora Hjalmar, who has always been petted and s.h.i.+elded, at last has to face and solve certain difficult problems for herself. She thus discovers just how much her husband's love and indulgence are worth. Her solution of the difficulty is presented, not as necessarily the right thing to have done, but as what such a woman would do under the circ.u.mstances.

Boni and Liveright.

THE LADY FROM THE SEA: Ellida Wrangel, wife of the village pastor, feels the call of the sea; she feels she must go with the rough sailor to whom she was once betrothed. When Wrangel sincerely offers her liberty to choose, she "seeks the security of a familiar home, and the wild lure of the great sea s.p.a.ces can trouble her no more." (Lewisohn.)

Boni and Liveright.

+W.W. Jacobs and Others+

ADMIRAL PETERS; THE GRAY PABKOT; THE CHANGELING; BOATSWAIN'S MATE: Jolly farces of sailors and watchmen and their families, based on Jacobs's stories in _Captains All, Many Cargoes_, and the rest.

French.

THE MONKEY'S PAW: A most fearful and gruesome play, based on Jacobs's story, in the vein of the _Three Wishes_, and the _Foot of Pharaoh_, by Gautier.

French.

+Jerome K. Jerome+

f.a.n.n.y AND THE SERVANT PBOBLEM: The new Lady Bantock is surprised to discover both her real rank and her strange relations.h.i.+p with her twenty-three servants. An interesting character study.

French.

+William Ellery Leonard+

GLORY OF THE MORNING: The pathos of two civilizations contending for the children of the Indian woman, Glory of the Morning; they must go with their father to France or stay with their mother.

Dr. Leonard has newly completed another powerful tragedy, _Red Bird_, as yet unpublished.

In _Wisconsin Plays, First Series_, 1914, B.W. Huebsch.

+Justin McCarthy+

IF I WERE KING: A romantic play, in the vein of De Banville's _Gringoire_, in which Villon becomes Marshal of France, for a brief time and with a fearful condition stipulated by the spider-king, Louis XI.

Heinemann.

+Edward k.n.o.blauch and Arnold Bennett+

MILESTONES: Three different generations, with their different ideas and ideals, confront similar problems with different views, and arrive at various conclusions.

Doran.

+Percy Mackaye+

THE CANTERBURY PILGRIMS: Mr. Mackaye, translator with Professor Tatlock of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, has written here a clever play of the travelers' adventures. The Wife of Bath is of course the ringleader in mischief.

Macmillan.