The Theatre in Boston

There are just two moods which would make "The Man Who Married a Dumb Wife" and "Androcles and the Lion" impossible for the spectator: one is the mood of the "Follies" and the other is the mood possessed by what Cyril Harcourt has termed "Consumptive Puritans." Both plays are rare treats,--but only to those who do not carry the above-mentioned attitudes with them to the Wilbur Theatre. Some may claim that it doesn't take a sick Puritan to turn pale when Shaw's burlesque of early Christianity really gets under way. That would be true,--if one dared take Shaw seriously. But one doesn't, so we call it "delightfully amusing" instead. Which only goes to show that the attitude is the main thing after all.

Anatole France's "The Man Who Married a Dumb Wife" was, suggested by that short passage in Rabelais concerning such a situation and the resulting dilemma. As elaborated into a play by M. France, and interpreted into a genuine "production" by Granville Barker, it is probably the most enchanting piece of clowning that has visited Boston for many theatrical moons. We know it could never be real, so we take refuge in "Mediaeval," and that is exactly the word. The spirit, the quaint vigor, the broad underlined humor of the situations mark it so for the spectator, even if he has his eyes shut. Robert Edmond Jones '10 has dressed the play and players in the colorful riot of an eastern bazaar. The very rags of the beggars have been schemed with an artist's eye.

There is more method than madness in preceding "Androcles and the Lion" with this quaint comedy in the old French manner. After all, it does not seem so tremendous a jump from the mediaeval to the days of the Christian martyrs. By the unreality of the first, we are quite prepared for the product of Shaw's fertile imagination. He calls it a "fable play." He might better have called it a "fabulous entertainment." If one goes in glum seriousness to see a play, if one wants to imbibe the practical philosophy of a deep thinker, if one wants anything else but to hear well-spiced dialogue for its own sake or for the sake of the whims of its author, "Androcles and the Lion" is the wrong thing to see. For every human person with the least hint of an eclectic taste, it cannot help but form part of an unforgettable evening in his theatrical experience.

In letting his imagination loose on what sort of people the Christian martyrs might have been, Shaw is now amusing, now mock-serious, now openly cynical,--and now and again not tactful in the presence of the easily shocked. For instance, where the Christians are cheerfully assigning themselves to places on the Coliseum menu, and one gentleman announces that he is to be the mince pie. Probably, however, this is no more a burlesque on anachronism than to have Roman centurions speak cockney English, or the Roman dandles have all the characteristics of London fops. It might be argued that Shaw did this to make it quite understandable to the British mind. Satirically speaking, that is exactly his point.

Because the gentle, meek tailor, Androcles, has drawn the thorn from the lion's paw in the jungle, said beast refuses to devour said tailor in the arena. That is the core of the entertainment. The meat is found in the incidentals, which are mainly dialogue. Shaw cares no more for our emotions than for the play, as such, so why should we take it with a long face and call it 'daring dialogue." Nothing of the sort. It is a colossal toying with one fanciful idea after another. Think of a lion out-roaring a Caesar