The first two volumes of The Plays of W. Somerset
Maughant (Heinemann, 5s. each) include Lady Frederick, Mrs. Dot, Jack Straw, Penelope, Smith, and The Land of Promise. None of these six is a great play. With the exception of the last they are all drawing-room comedies, cut to a more or less conventional pattern. Penelope was a vehicle for Miss Marie Tempest, Smith for Miss Marie Lohr and Mr. Robert Loraine. They are what is now called " West End Theatre." Each of them had, and deserved, a measure of success ; and each of them is unmistakably written by Mr. Somerset Maugham. Therein lies their chief virtue, and the publisher's justifica- tion. As early essays in a craft since perfected they are extremely interesting. The critic's perceptions are perhaps sharpened by Mr. Maugham's later successes ; but it would be impossible not to acclaim in these plays that assurance and economy of style, that unfailing sense of the theatre, with which his situations are defined before our eyes, as electric lights pick out an advertisement in a combination of sym- metry and surprise. Lady Frederick and The Land of Promise seemed to us the best. Mr. Maugham would probably plead not guilty to that " underlying seriousness ' which is too easily discerned in much modern comedy ; but he is liable to passing attacks of profundity which prevent him from seeming —as in Jack Straw—completely at home with the purely
artificial. * * * *
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