CRIMSION PLAYGOER

This is no time to try to think of original criticism of "Rain", now belatedly current at the New Park Theatre. The play has been praised by metropolitan critics as long and as fervidly as "Abie's Irish Rose" has been reviled, and with equally good reason. An appreciation is more in order than a review. This department is doing its full duty to its readers in saying merely that the passing years have treated the play and the players kindly. There is none of the mechanical action and listless mouthing of lines that one might expect after four years of daily performances. Miss Jeanne Eagels still puts all of herself into the role of Miss Sadie Thompson, the lady of ill repute who turns toys curvy the sedentary life of Pago Pago. The rest of the players still give her sincere, intelligent support. The rain machine still works overtime to contribute its quota of depression and morbidity to the atmosphere.

Bad women of various kinds of society and climate have had an unusual fling of popularity on the American stage in the last few years. Plays have been built upon those subjects which, in the words of "The Poor Nut," "It seems so public to talk about in private". Canny, producers with their ear to the ground have capitalized their patrons' taste for the salacious and thereby reaped a tritely-called golden harvest, "Rain"; although it deals frankly with the most delicate of subjects, has in it less of salacity than the average sophisticated revue. Unfortunately a not inconsiderable element of the audience is on the qui vive to greet the least suggestion of indelicacy with furtive tittering, whisperings, and nudging. This discordant note is far more obnoxious than anything that takes place on the stage, and those who contribute to it had best spend their evenings at home exchanging smutty stories. They are quite out of place in the theatre.

"Rain" is a play of unusual mechanical workmanship. Its main theme is unquestionably depressing, but it is so thoroughly woven with comedy that the pill is given a most palatable sugarcoating. Mr. Holmes is most delightful as the Falstaffian landlord, Mr. Rogers is as convincingly a drunken sailor as there ever was on or off the stage. But above all, there is Miss Eagels. R. H. F.