From the uttermost reaches of a front box, it was recently our privilege to see Mr. Courtney Burr's comedy, "Sailor, Beware." Our disappointment was great at finding that it was not a musical, an illusion we had carried about New York literally for months. It certainly should have been a musical: it has just the right sort of plot, and even in the second act it is hard not to expect a chorus to come tripping on any moment, faces and limbs aglow with professional cheer. Our sense of hearing, dulled by this disappointment, and by the discovery that we had been trepanned off practically into the wings, was not helped by the acoustics of the Lyceum. Altogether there was every reason to come away from the play disgruntled and disquieted. It speaks well for "Sailor, Beware," that we didn't.

From various remarks dropped by the actors, and also by the escort of the deaf lady in the next box, we gathered that the theme of the play was nothing less than the attempt of a god on shore-leave to rob a young dance-hall hostess of her maidenhead. Two other tars, gross fellows all, lay bets upon his enterprise. This plot is a simple one, and it is thematically unvaried throughout. If you are looking for an evening of good 100 per cent American smut, this is it. There's no nastiness in it; the only cloud in the welkin of direct and open-faced lechery is the obnoxious Senor Gomez, whom the play-wright gives no shrift.

The humor of it, like the plot, is sunny and to-the-point. The quality which makes "Sailor, Beware" a charming evening is its complete simplicity; it doesn't seem possible than anyone could write such guiltless stuff with wheat selling at $1.06 and O'Neill's "Days Without End" on the boards. The hostesses in The Idle Hour Cafe talk with point and guste; they know that life is life. The heroine knows it too, but she has the old hourgeois respectability on her mind, and keeps pretty stiff-backed. Young "Dynamite," the aggressor, tries all manner of persuasions, from the argument that "you haven't lived till you've lived" to the simpler muscular method. And despite his inordinate skill, it takes just two acts (out of two) for the lady to make up her mind. Your cousin from out West would call it "pretty raw," but it really is just a fine, clean portrayal of young passion, more freely translated than usual into the English tongue. On the side, of course, the play gives amusing vignettes of the everyday life of the sailor, etc., etc.

The actors are not well known on Broadway. They do a forthright job, with little subtlety of voice, expression, or movement, and very much in keeping with the play. They are so castly amusing, though, that carping at them makes us feel like an ingrate. You'll enjoy this play, gentlemen, even if it doesn't selves any problems.