Robinson Jeffers, American poet and anther has written a new version of Enripides' "Medea" and has made the Greek tragedy excellent modern theater fare. This is quite an accomplishment, but the success is not all Mr. Jeffers', nor did he intend it so. The "free adaptation" was written expressly for Judith Anderson. Mr. Jeffers has done double service to the theater in giving it an actable version of "Medea" and giving Miss Anderson an opportunity to make theater history.

If I didn't share the enthusiasm of last year's New York theatergoers, who cheered themselves hoarse over Miss Anderson's performance, it was only because its magnificence came as no revelation. It is, however, particularly gratifying to see her playing Medea again, and to find that she has somewhat tempered her interpretation of the she-lion to make her more sympathetic. There are now instances to show that the embittered Asiatic does not lose her sense of humor, And, needless to say, she does not lose her sex impulse. Miss Anderson's Medea rages not only at the wrong done to her children and her pride but also at the coldness of her bed.

The present production is under a new producer and director, Guthric McClintic, and we have him to thank for many of the improvements. The part of Jason, played by Henry Brandon is better handled, though still undefined. The chorus of three Corinthian women has happily not been recruited from the ranks of the subway money-changers, as seemed to be the case in the earlier production. Gone is their folksy quality perhaps, but the dialogue has benefited. On the debit side, there are two actors playing Creon and Aegeus who either have dental difficulties or misapplied crepe beards. Much of what they say is completely muffled.

In Euripides, Medea is seen at the last escaping to Athens with the bodies of her two children. And, probably since 431 B.C., moralists have been objecting to her apparent escape from punishment and retribution. I trust Mr. McClintic did not have this moral objection in mind when he altered the ending to have Medea merely standing over her children's corpses. The script has not been changed: she still talks of escaping, but the audience does not see her do it.

There is no really fine verse in this adaptation and it offers on scholastic threat to the Euripides-Gilbert Murray success team. But Jeffers has reduced to a minimum the hard demands put upon an audience by a Greek tragedy; the number of mythological allusions and images is small and the diction is tuned for modern ears. It's a pity that the writer, who has a good sense of dramatic values, has no lyrical gift. Mr. Jeffers has had theater greatness thrust upon him by Miss Anderson.