THE PLAYGOER

Here is a play, sensitively written and beautifully acted, which everyone should see in these tense days of readjustment to actual conditions of warfare. The scene is a fashionable girls' school in Switzerland; the time is August and early September, 1939. Six girls of varying nationalities: French, German, Polish, English, and American, are fast friends before the holocaust. But stranded in Lucerne, without proper guidance, they let national ties separate them into dissident cliques until, with the unknowing cruelty and stupidity of the young, they bring tragedy to Erna Schmidt, the young German girl.

It is an ably constructed play, and within the title lies very effective use of dramatic irony. In the first act the girls, as usual, read their carefree love letters and stuffy parental epistles to one another before going to sleep. But by the last act, these letters have brought death and tragedy to them; the very rollicking idea of reading the letters aloud has caused strife and bitterness among them. The last letter to Lucerne, read by Erna, is one of the most touching scenes in recent years.

The tragedy of Erna Schmidt is the tragedy of all decent men and women, "the little people," who are blamed for the maniacal deeds of their rulers. The girls, in their patriotic fervor, try to focus all their unresolved thinking, all their unresolved thinking, all their hatred of Germany, upon her, trying to create of her an image of the Nazi regime.

The acting is compelling--no finer cast could have been assembled, particularly in the choice of the six girls, all of whom excel in the shrewdly and sympathetically drawn characters. The play, though, belongs to Grete Mosheim. To the role of Erna, her first appearance on the American stage, she brings a magnificent technique, an exciting individuality, a warmth and depth unexcelled, and gives the most merorable performance of the year.