10 JUNE 1916, Page 22

Five Russian Plays. Translated by C. R. Bechhofer. (Kogan Paul,

Trench, and Co. 3s. 6d. net.)—Nicholas Evrainov has a fantastio touch, and A Merry Death—recently given a production in London by the Pioneer Players—has much that is attractive in it. The Beautiful Despot, the other of his plays published in this book, is disappointing. There is another translation of Anton Chekhov's one-act plays The Wedding and The Jubilee : and The Choice of a Tutor, by Denis von Vizin, an eighteenth-century farce, is interesting as a study of Russian manners at that period. The Babylonian Captivity, by Lesya Ukrainka, which we arc told in M. Beohhofer's introduction represents the enslave- ment of the Ukraine by its powerful neighbours, is hardly more than a sketch, but such characterization as its length allows is very well done, and the writing altogether is on a high leveL