It is gratifying to see that after a hot and painful summer good drama still abides in Boston, with headquarters at the Plymouth where those august troopers from the Theatre Guild are playing "Reunion in Vienna", a truly delightful piece. The play does not deal with a college reunion. There are no middle-aged babies congregating to let off animal spirits. This reunion, on the contrary, is a coming together of the fag ends of an exiled Austrian aristocracy who hope to spend their last pennies laughing and weeping in their beloved Vienna, before braving another decade of hardworking exile in a cruel post-war world. On the stage there is a reunion of some of the best dramatic talent, moving lightly about in a play written by Robert Sherwood in his happiest vein.

The Lunt family supplies the main entertainment of a delightful evening. Alfred is the dashing Prince Rudolph Von Hapsburg, but he really plays no part so much as that of Alfred Lunt Himself. Lynn Fontanne, relieved from her gray hair and wrinkles as Elizabeth the Queen emerged radiant and lovely in the part of Frau Elena Krug. It is not too much to say that to gaze at Lynn Fontanne, to follow her movements carefully is an experience only too rare in a world of harsh vulgarities. She does wonderfully in her part; her poise, her dress, her voice are all exquisite.

Alfred Lunt's acting is always capable, but always systematic. He does not throw himself into the part so much as throw the part lightly over his shoulders, so that the character "Alfred Lunt" is obvious everywhere and sometimes most incongruous with the character as prescribed. This makes for a similarity in his characterizations which are therefore hard to criticize as separate exhibitions. Combined Rudolph Valentine and Douglas Fairbanks is the order of the day, and the part is well filled, barring a certain lack of fun and, overmuch grimness. One would ask for a little more lightness of touch.

The theme is unimportant, but the set- ting is grand. As in countless other plays, "Candida" for one, a beautiful young wife must choose between the new respectability, social idealism, and homey security, as against reckless emotional love. The lovely lady is Elena of the Aristocrats who has faced the revolution bravely and become the wife of a psychoanalyst, eminent in "Vienna's only remaining industry." This is not a marriage of love or understanding, just a practical marriage, and has been made miserable with specters and names from Elena's glamorous history. Then the relicts of the Hapsburg Court return, some from London millinery shops, others from managing positions in Swiss boarding houses, and as piece de resistance comes Prince Rudolph from his taxi business to revive memories in Vienna and to toy with champagne on a pauper's holiday. Elena is attacked by severe nostalgia and goes to the party, confronts the irrepressible Rudolph, and so Love bursts the bonds of home courses in applied psychology and sweeps all before it as in Hapsburg days.

A pretty wit coupled with breath-taking brilliance in dialogue are Mr. Sherwood's prize possessions, displayed to perfection in "Reunion in Vienna." Let Molnar look to his laurels