"Success Story," drama in three acts by John Howard Lawson, second offering of the Group Theater at the Majestic.

Viciously, bitingly controversial is this powerful drama from the pen of John Howard Lawson which the Group Theater has chosen as its second play of the current season. Forcefully conceived and superbly constructed, it tells the story of a Russian Jew in his struggle for power and self expression. Cursed with a driving ambition, an unlimited imagination, and a suppressed poetic fervor, Sol Ginsburg rises ruthlessly to the domination of a great business firm. This mad search for power drives Sol from his love for Sarah Glassman; his restless soul is never satisfied; his confused ideals and desires lead him on in unceasing search for anything which seems inaccessible to him. Having achieved his goal of wealth and industrial dominance, having compelled the vacuous, sensuous mistress of his former employer to marry him, he suddenly attempts to regain the shattered affections of Sarah, but she resists him, knowing that happiness and peace shall never be his. He does not want the things which he has achieved; he merely wants to achieve them and call them his. His blinding ambitions has dehumanized him so utterly that he no longer is a feeling, loving human, but a grasping, cruel robot, who sweeps everything before him. He is not unkind or inconsiderate to those whom he has succeeded in dominating, for they no longer mean anything to him. He drives onward to a goal which he does not know until finally he is destroyed by the shattered roots of his past, which rise again and make him feel the aimlessness and brutality of his life.

The first and second acts have a strength rarely found on the modern stage and in the final scene there is a poetic beauty and terror which is almost Biblical in its sweep and expression. Stella Adler as Sarah Glassman is superb; her work has an artistry and beauty which is enthralling, and her understanding melodious voice pierces deeper than the ears. Luther Adler is powerfully moving as the unfortunate Jew; he is at once strong, pitiful, poetic, and cruel. The supporting cast is uniformly capable, and the technical phases of the production have been admirably accomplished.

It is neither a "nice" nor an "enjoyable" play, but it is a starkly forceful drama, conceived with courage and perception, acted with magnificent skill, and produced with the best of modern technical ability.