For the week beginning December 10, at the Majestic Theatre, Miss Lena Ashwell presented "The Shujamite," a three-act play dramatized from Claude Askew's novel by Edward Knoblauch '96. The play was originally produced last spring at the Savoy Theatre, London, where it enjoyed a successful run.

"The "Shulamite" is Deborah Krillet, the young wife of a sternly religious old Boer farmer, who demands patriarchal obedience from his household and enforces it with the lash. Deborah escapes a flogging with a lie concerning her condition. Later she is forced to tell the truth, and her husband resolves to kill her. The young English overseer, who is in love with Deborah, saves her by shooting her husband. In the last act, in spite of a wife in England, and a too curious relative of the dead man, matters are straightened out and the curtain falls upon a happy future for the Shulamite and her English lover.

The play is distinguished by its extreme simplicity--there are but six characters--and a rugged austerity of motion. It is gaunt and strong. Its weakness lies in its sameness of tone, which produces monotony of effect, in conventional characterization, and an anticlimactic last act. Mr. Knoblauch is fortunate to have his play in the hands of Miss Ashwell, who is new to our stage. Her admirable performance was marked by a certain suggestive repression that recalled forcibly the art and methods of Duse.