MR. BENNETT'S STORY OF JUDITH * Tag story of Judith
as told in the Apocrypha has all the qualities of simplicity, barbario drama, and religious fervour whioh make up so many of those wonderful Eastern tales, qualities that raise them often from sordid incident to sheer poetry. Only a poet perhaps could be expected to retell such a story with justice, but Mr. Bennett achieves less success than might have been expected from so practised and gifted a writer. His play follows the main outlines of the Apocrypha story, but in one or two important details he varies it. The most important of all is connected with Judith herself. "And many desired her, but none knew her all the days of her life, after that Manasses her husband was dead and was gathered to his people. But she increased more and more in honour and waxed old in her husband's house." Thus writes the poet of the Apocrypha. But this is not Mr. Bennett's Judith, who takes unto herself a second husband in the person of Achior, the young Assyrian who left the worship of Nebuchadnezzar for that of Israel's God. .And Ozias, one of the Governors of the city, persecutes her with attentions at a moment of crisis in her country's history, and is listened to with a tolerance impossible to imagine in her dignified and inspired prototype. We may regret such varia- tions from the original, and we ourselves should have been more interested to see what Mr. Bennett could make of the story, fine drama as it is, as it stands in the Apocrypha. But we recognize that there is no valid objection to such variations provided the author justifies them by success. We must con- fess that we do not think Mr. Bennett has achieved this. A general criticism of the play must be summed up in the hackneyed phrase—it lacks atmosphere. His Judith lacks conviction as the inspired saviour of her country, and rarely rises above the level of a beautiful intriguer. His Ozias, again, whom he chooses to interpret as a wily humbug, strikes a note of satire whieh is irreooneilable with the rest of the play. The best character-drawing is that of the Asayriart commander, Holofernes, and of those two "ancients of Bethulla,' Chabris and Charm's, and the little episodes between old Chabris and his imperious granddaughter are at once amusing and appropriate.
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