Mr. Hagedorn's New One-Act Play

It is an unfortunate restriction which the custom of our theatres imposes upon the art of the dramatist--that he must scale all his pictures of life to the measure of about two hours and a half. Clearly things do not happen with just that degree of complexity which makes possible the stating and solving of a problem within any one limit of time. So we are ready to welcome such a departure as enables us to see this week at the Bijou Dream Theatre a piece written to be played in half an hour.

At the outset we must confess that the situation of Mr. Hagedorn's play does not strike us as well conceived for so short a drama. Two men and a woman, wrecked on a remote island, are, indeed, likely before long to realize that two is company; but it takes time to throw off the influence of convention and to see such a situation in its primitive nakedness. What happens in "The World too Small for Three" is plausible enough, if time were given to the characters to arrive at the conclusions on which they act, and to the audience to realize that these conclusions are inevitable. But one resents being hurried; and the chief impression carried away is that the conception of character and the interest of the problem are both powerful enough to make it regrettable that the author did not take time and room enough to be convincing. Yet, in spite of indifferent acting, the performance is not dull; and the success is sufficient to make us hope that this opportunity for dramatic experiment on a modest scale may be kept open.