A fine performance as a psycho-neurotic refugee by Eleanora Mendelssohn and some good murder scenes are the main features of "The Secret Room." These are also a pair of unusually good child actresses, whose lines and behavior almost completely avoid that theatrical sin, cuteness.

Robert Turney's drama shows how Leda Ferroni, the refugee, is led to murder and finally to total insanity in her unscrupulous struggle to keep her past a secret and to make her future happy. The key to this happiness is the possession of a baby, but psychologically Ferroni is unable to have her own. So she goes about winning the affection of the two little girls while posing as a friend of the family. It is all quite effective, and the secret room itself, whether it is intended as a symbol of Miss Ferroni's hidden past or not, adds to the general tension.

Some of the writing is awkward, and there is very little development in any of the characters except Miss Ferroni and one of the children. Not that there isn't plenty of action, and changes in the temper of the relationships, but nearly everybody seems pretty much the same at the end of the play as they were at the beginning. Turney also plays a very irritating trick on his audience by having the mother (Frances Dee, a capable actress from Hollywood) apparently, murdered at the end of Act II, only to reveal in Act III that she was just overpowered and temporarily hidden.

The real trouble is that the play is missing a consistency of emphasis on some one central theme. "The Secret Room" is essentially a melodrama. But at moments during the first two acts it seems to be aiming in the direction of a psychological study, and once, with some references to Miss Ferroni's aristocratic background, some special implications are thrown in. The producers evidently realize that this is confusing, as an entire new first act is to be put in early next week and should make a substantial indifference.

Although Moss Hart's direction is generally tasteful, he has his actors degenerate into over-emotional climaxes that spoil much of the last act. In spire of all this "The Secret Room" is steadily interesting and the very neat final curtain has some of the quality of a last minute winning touchdown.