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The article focuses on the book "Portraits," by Desmond MacCarthy. The book contains essays which deal which is concerned with Anatole France and his late conversion to Communist dogmas. Here again the point is not one which has to do with either the usefulness or the dangers of dogmas in themselves, but with the fact that they half destroyed France for the simple reason that they were inappropriate. The man who had rejected all systems of thought had no right suddenly to embrace one and he could not really embrace opinions.

Plays by Sophie Treadwell have been teaching Broadway from time to time since at least as far back as the early twenties. They have generally been serious in intention, and they have generally been received by commentators with a certain seriousness. The story is concerned with a young widow who comes back from long residence in Paris, France to a Western farming community and the people with whom she had grown up. But the simple and sturdy way of life to which she had hoped to return has disappeared.

This article focuses on a theatrical production "Lute Song," directed by Sidney Howard. This drama is a remake of a Chinese drama "Pi-pa-ki," which has been a very popular in China for last five hundred years. Howard located an obscure French translation and made from that an English version which, over a period of years, various producers considered and then gave up. He got success with this theatrical production. The story concerns the long separation of a devoted bride and her young scholar husband, who is held against his will at the imperial court.

This article focuses on the drama "Antigone," which is played in Paris during the occupation of city by Germans. Though acted in modern costume, the scene was left in ancient Greece, and little essential change was made in either the action or even the motives. To transform it into a fable for the times, little more than a mere modernization of the terminology was necessary. Since the German censors could not have failed to recognize that the play was intended as a commentary upon the current situation one wonders why they permitted it at all.

The article presents information on various dramas. It was once generally believed that a European success counted for more than it should in the American theater. People were supposed to be provincial snobs unduly impressed by the approval of U.S. dramas, and people were blamed for being only too ready to applaud what England or France had first approved. At least a dozen examples could easily be cited from recent years, but a few instances afforded by the present season will do. "The Good Companions" gave up after something of a struggle, but "The Sex Fable"-which had kept Paris in paroxysms for two whole seasons, disappeared before any except those who make a business of following the theater even knew that it was here.