CINEMA CRIMSON PLAY GORE DRAMA

"What a Man! What a man!" says Sergius as Captain Bluntschli makes a very graceful exit. What a man is right, and what a play, too. Arms and the Man is as thoroughly enjoyable a play as I have seen in Boston for a long time. Anybody interested in forgetting hour examinations, or Princeton games, or for that matter, anything at all, can find no better or pleasanter way of doiag it than by spending some evening at the Repertory. Theatre, sitting in the soft-cushioned, well spaced, comfortable seats. I love a theatre with chairs instead of stocks to sit in. It makes it almost enjoyable to watch plays badly done, and I've had my chance to do that at the Repertory. But last night was different. Under the able coaching of Henry Jewett the acting company has come out of its slump and surprised us all. Odds on Enchanted April, the next production, have gone up to seven to three, favor of Mr. Jewett's squad. The present production is the best I have seen at this theatre since it opened.

G. B. S., in this one of his "pleasant," plays, had taken advantage of every possible bit of humor--humor of the broadest sort. He doesn't smile at Raina's medieval fancy about the chivalrous knight who gallops up to the enemy on horseback and kills a hundred men with one stroke of its sword instead the laughs long and loud. In the preface the play he says: "I am not convinced that the world is only held together by force of unanimous, strenuous, eloquent, trumpet tongued lying;" and he goes on to make this statement more emphatic Everybody in the play is a liar of one sort or another, and everybody but the hero is completely exposed. This latter I felt, would have been exposed if he had dared stick his face on the stage, again. The satire on the Balkans is no longer potent, but what it loses as satire it gains as pure humor; so the audience is always the winner.

Mr. Jewett, in his interpretation of Sergius, has realized the effects of the lines to their greatest extent. He bellows and boasts as a Major in the army of Bullgarial; and his poses, hitherto obnoxious, become enjoyable. I was almost induced to go the grave of John the Baptist and apologize for not understanding that he, too, was a braggart. Mr. Jewett forgot that he was the great Shakesperian actor, and became an understanding Shavion interpreter.

Little can be said of the play that has not been said before. The first act drages a bit at times, but luring the dialogues between Raina and Bluntschli it is thoroughly absorbing. The second act, (with the entrance of that at living bassoon or kettle drum. Ralph Robert as Major Patkoff) becomes brisk, and at times almost beisterous. The third act continues in this vein and ends with everyone happily set and everybody completely exposed "Guy Phillips, not seem to these shores since 1914, was perfectly adapted to the part of Captain, Bluntschli, or I should say, adapted himself perfectly to the part. His voice carried well, and caught the rhythm of Shaw's lines. He was the understanding gentleman and soldier. He knew the advantage of chocolate creams over cartridges. He had no more illusions than Shaw of the existence of courage, patroitism, faith, hope, and charity. (For the ladies, he looks, gorgeous in the uniform of a Captain.