"Shanghai Marriage", by R. R. Harris, has been advertised as a comedy, but in reality it is a tragody for E. E. Clive, who is trying to make a comeback after having been forced to disband his Copley repertory company seventeen months ago. The audiences at the "world premiere" on Saturday night was composed mainly of old guard dowagers-with-nieces-from-the country and a smattering of Harvard students, and it was not long before they all realized the sadness of the occasion.

The play might have been a success if it has been well written: in fact, it might have been three successes, all different in type, for it contained that many distinct elements full of possibilities in themselves but discordant when bound together. There is Clive dressed in kilt, sox, spats, and sporran; and Clive never fails to make the most out of that costume. There is a third act bedroom scene which might have been made pleasantly risque if the cast, mindful of its audience, had not continually hedged away from the issue unitl the curtain suddenly drops before anyone realizes that the play is over. And there is a rather ingenious situation involved in the prologue at the beginning of the performance.

The situation is, that a female missionary, who has been captured by a Chinese general with a pretty taste for virgins, casts desperately about to find someone she can claim as husband and thus secure her release. A British consul, acting as her agent, obtains for a fee the signature of a Scotch sailor who happens to be in the Shanghai jail. A later divorce is promised, and as neither party has seen the other, the sailor imagines his wife to be a straight-laced old maid; while the missionary assumes that her savior is a lecherous young jack-tar. The two do not meet until they return to Scotland some time later, where the girl turns out to be the daughter of Lord Cairnsmuir and the man no mere mariner but the owner of a yacht. Not realizing these facts, the be castled father (acted by Clive) goes forward with plans to find in the town a suitable wench to act as co-respondent in the promised divorce suit. From this last bit of embarrassment is derived the principle humor of the play, with its culminating bedroom scene.

Throughout there are occasional bursts of humor, but most of the robust opportunities have been either overlooked or avoided. The leading parts of the missionary (Katherine Standing) and the sailor (David Tearle) are under-acted, while the various character parts are over-acted in every case with the possible exception of Clive's. The only memorable part is that of an alluring chambermaid (Elizabeth Johnston) sent to seduce the hero, but who succeeds only in winning the hero's cockney steward.

The play is clumsy throughout, and morally is neither one thing nor another. Due to a mistake probably the property man's and not the author's the inhabitants of Cairnsmuir Castle are seen reading the Boston Traveller, while some of the minor actors are still stuttering for their cues. In all, the play is a disappointment to all of Clive's many friends, who have been hoping that this might be his first step towards bringing back to Boston a regime of nice, clean plays for all the family.