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Wilde's Salome at the Budapesterstrasse Theater. The hand of the republican censor is at present laid far less heavily upon the arts; but, partly for political reasons, the censor makes amends by drastic regulation, which has almost wiped out the night life of the capital.

Shakespeare is as popular as before the war. Max Reinhardt has staged magnificent performances of A Midsummer Night's Dream, A Merchant of Venice, and Julius Cæsar, although his Hamlet was less successful. The State Theatre has produced Richard III. The New People's Theatre has given Pericles and the Comedy of Errors.

Reinhardt conceived his Midsummer Night's Dream as a fairy spectacle, in three pictures, a treatment of the play which would probably have delighted Shakespeare himself, for there is good reason to believe that he originally wrote it for outdoor performance with the richest mounting possible. The opening scene was played before a background of heavy curtains, which opened presently, disclosing a fairy forest, where curious shapes of ferns and fir trees loomed fantastically under a warm dark sky glimmering with a thousand stars. There was no break in the performance until the close of Act IV, when a brief pause prepared Reinhardt's audience for a production by that no less famous producer, Bully Bottom.

Who but Reinhardt could have introduced the Russian ballet in a Shakespearean production without giving it a disastrously exotic flavor? Oberon becomes a dryad, so long of figure and so green of face that he at first barely emerges amid the trees. Titania's crown is wrought of the birch leaves

that form her garment. Puck is brown, squat, hairy, perhaps more nearly the Robin Goodfellow of popular tradition than Shakespeare would have wished. In the mysterious light, while the sky fades to gray and silver translucence, other fairies clad in floating draperies of diaphanous green dance elfin dances, which half allure, half tantalize the eye, so subtly do they merge into their woodland background.

Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan, The Ideal Husband, and Salome, have all had recent performances. Bernard Shaw, who has long been popular in Germany, though not in France, is represented by Pygmalion, The Shewing Up of Blanco Posnet, The Man of Destiny, and Cæsar and Cleopatra (a Reinhardt production at the Deutsches Theater).

There have been a number of Ibsen productions, but the most successful Scandinavian play was Strindberg's Dance of Death, in which Tilla Durieux, who played Eliza in Pygmalion, interpreted the wife, torn by mingled love and hate. The settings for this production may fairly be charged with morbidity. The round doors of the turret dwelling disclosed an interior entirely black black furniture, black hangings, black costumes-relieved only by an evil red glow at the window and a savage gleam from the eyes of a halfseen, silently crouching animal. So evidently unhealthy was this performance that a more robust rendering of The Father at another theatre gave a certain relief, even to the admirers of Strindberg. The intense seriousness with which these plays are taken is indicated by the total absence of applause. The audiences are mainly young men and middle-aged women.

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THE LIVING AGE

NUMBER 4019

JULY 16, 1921

A WEEK OF THE WORLD

INDIA'S NEW GOVERNMENT AT WORK

THE Living Age is in receipt of information from private but very high authority to the effect that the new National Assembly in India has been a success. In personnel its quality is better than expected; in debating ability at least half a dozen members need not fear the competition of any but the most skilful British parliamentarians, and the whole body has shown a corporate sense of responsibility which is most reassuring.

In view of the difficulty experienced at times in Porto Rico and the Philippines when dealing with appropriations in a native legislature, it is significant that the budget was carried successfully. Although the native members vigorously criticized it in the debate, they refrained from using their tempting power to make wholesale reductions in the funds allotted the Departments. Gandhism, of which we published an Indian criticism in our issue of May 14, is reported still to be a real force; but to have failed among the educated classes. A Calcutta journal thus describes the rapid waxing and waning of non-coöperation in the Brahmaputra Valley:

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right up the river to the unmapped mountains. I have never seen anything spread so quickly. Remember, it was only an idea; the people did not know what they were speaking about, but they had all on their tongues the word Gandhi and that something wonderful was going to happen to them. Little places of business were filled with people discussing the subject, but they could not get a solution of what it all meant; the chief impression I felt was an air of expectation. In railway trains, steamers, places of business, there was always animated discussion amongst all classes of people who usually stand aloof from one another. We heard vaguely of committees and rules and doing away with belati goods, and the people began to be quieter and look serious. Red Lamp 'cigarettes disappeared from shops, and smokers took to a small native cheroot with a vile smell. Meetings began to be held and pice to be collected, and this made the ordinary man more serious than ever. School lads here and there got very brave and refused to attend school. Then things began to be normal again, for the Assamese is not a man with an excitable temperament that lasts, and experience has told him that his chief end in life is to see he has wherewithal to fill his belly and clothe his body. The last time I went round the rural districts, everyone was busy ploughing and I did not hear the name of Gandhi or committee mentioned my whole trip.

Nevertheless, there is explosive material in India. The Sikh community is ablaze with excitement, almost amountCopyright 1921, by The Living Age Co.

It went from town to town, village to village, practically house to house everywhere

ing to a religious feud, over local controversies affecting its faith. Agrarian discontent is acute in many sections, and on top of it all, Indian labor is beginning to organize itself, and is not immune from the disturbing influences which we have known so long in industrial centres in Europe.' On the whole, however, the tone of this report is optimistic.

A LUDENDORFF INTERVIEW

A SPECIAL correspondent of L'Indépendance Belge in Bavaria recently had an opportunity to discuss the military situation there with Ludendorff. The old commander is courting public notice, appearing frequently at the theatre, political meetings, and patriotic doings. Hindenburg, on the other hand, courts retirement, especially since the recent death of his wife. While Ludendorff refuses to give regular interviews, he is very fond of an argument. The correspondent chanced upon him in company with several other gentlemen on a short pedestrian tour, when he was quite volubly at ease. In the course of the conversation he said that he detested present-day politics, and wished to keep out of them so far as possible. He remarked: 'What Germany needs is evolution, not revolution.' He considered it madness for Germany to think of another war with France, and believed the country should comply with the terms of the treaty. He thought a little hardship would be a good tonic for the nation after its excessive prosperity. The people should devote themselves to home affairs. They should hark back to the days of privation and progress after the Napoleonic wars. Bolshevism is still a danger. Just now the attention of that movement is concentrated on Asia, but it will eventually make another drive against Western Europe. The conversation turned to many other things, but Ludendorff's

favorite topic was the internal revival of Germany. He kept recurring to that.

GREAT BRITAIN AND JAPAN

SPEAKING of the Japanese Alliance the London Spectator says:

Even the most wildly imperialistic and most aggressive of Britons do not contemplate with pleasure blowing the British Empire into smithereens in a single instant. We all know perfectly well that this would be the result if we went to war with America not to support some rights of our own, but in order to help the Japanese to fight Amer

ica. The moment such a war was declared, the bonds that unite us with the Dominions would be severed. If the people of Australia and New Zealand were asked which side

they were going to be on in a war between

the men of the white race and the men of the yellow race, they would not hesitate for a second. They would not waste time reading diplomatic papers, or considering legal points, or thumbing the clauses of the treaty. They would say: 'We are with our own flesh and blood! If the poor old mother country has gone mad, we cannot help it. We are deeply sorry; but if things have come to this pass, we must reluctantly take the leadership of her elder daughter rather than of herself. Help yellow men to take San Francisco by assault! Good heavens, what are you talking about!'

The same dreadful message of disintegration would run from end to end of Canada with a similar vehemence. There could

be only one place for Canada in a fight to a finish between Japan and America — by

the side of America. White South Africa would give the same answer. Nor would that be all. The moment they realized what had happened, ninety-nine per cent of the population here would be stoning their own government for its criminal lunacy in backing Japan against our own flesh and blood. We are quite as sure here as they are in the Dominions as to which is our proper side if it comes to war between Japan

and America.

On the other hand, the Tory National Review welcomes the visit of the Crown

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