"The late Mr. Christopher Bean" says nothing whatever about fundamental principles of love and life, neither does it provide abundant material for tea time musings or midnight discussion of new and subtler ideals; it does, however, furnish two delightful hours of restful entertainment of the most genuine character.

The production, at the Henry Miller Theatre in New York, is distinguished by its excellent casting, and by the finished performance of the entire cast, which is ably led by Miss Pauline Lord and Mr. Walter Connelly. All the characters are idealized; they represent the antithesis of nondescription, and embody, impressionistically, all the qualities which their respective types are expected to possess in real life, but never do.

Because of the simplicity of the play, a good deal of old-fashioned proverbialism is expressed with considerable force, but nowhere does the play flatter itself into searching after Truth. The weak and henpecked husband, and the wilful, self-seeking, and unattractive wife and elder daughter are all foiled in the end when the younger sister marries the hero, and Mr. Connelly and a forger are thwarted in their attempt to swindle Miss Lord and dupe the world of art; the most admirable touch of all is that the benevolently paternal and sophisticated art critic of the Herald Tribune brings it all about. Nothing could be more like a charming German fairy tale than this masterful triumph of the good and beautiful over the bad and ugly.

The play has officially been termed a comedy, but, in the modern sense of the word, it is not that: its value lies deeper in the spontaneity and simplicity of purpose which separate it completely from its deplorably self-conscious contemporaries. In a sense, it might be termed a reversion to the Elizabethan spirit. which arbitrarily inserted comedy into tragedy and tragedy into comedy, in order that audiences at the Globe standing elbow to elbow, should not become unduly restless. "The Late Mr. Christopher Bean" is neither a tragedy nor a comedy: it is a medley of dramatic ingenuities and pure drama which above all, never takes itself seriously It marks a distinct step away from pedantry and formalism, and towards the Anglo-Saxon ideal that the function of drams is to provide a maximum of entertainment, and a minimum of conscious instruction or dogmatic humor.