More standards of comparison can be brought to the Moscow Art Theatre's production of Maxim Gorky's "The Lower Depths" than to any other production offered during their Boston engagement. Within the past three years the play has had two professional productions in New York. One of these was the Arthur Hopkins production in which Pauline Lord first attracted considerable attention by her rendition of Nastya. The other was that given by the Yiddish Art Theatre in their theatre in the Bowery, and last spring here in Boston. The American production offered many interesting features, and differed greatly from either the Yiddish of the Moscow performances. Pauline Lord's Nastya was a fine achievement, the outstanding one of the performance. But the weak spot was the central character of the play, the Luka. In true American style he was made a sentimental figure, who fight have strayed in from a stained glass window. And the play was largely played in enveloping darkness. The Yiddish Art Theatre agreed with the Hopkins production in keeping the third act in the cellar, but there were other noticeable differences. The Nastya was not so good, and the Luka, played by Maurice Schwartz, was conceived as more of a burlesque figure than one who oddly mixes the religious and the practical, the human, and the saint. In both of these performances the handling of the mobs was adequate, but not unusual, and the many other character parts were competently filled.

With these two productions still in mind it was interesting to see the play as given by the Moscow Art Theatre. So different was the touch, so much subtler the method so much more perfect the artistry from beginning to the end that the play seemed a different play. At the Saturday afternoon performance Mihail Tarkhanoff played Luka. It would be difficult to think of a more perfect performance of the part. He played him with humor, and yet with sympathy, played him so quietly and so humanly that desire for reform became more than understandable, and the sudden forgetfulness of him in the last act seemed all the more tragic. The Nastya of Alla Tarassova was made of less common clay than that of Pauline Lord's. She was a prostitute, she was sunk to the extremities of the life seen in the play, but there was still quality of beauty, and appeal to her. With the Moscow Art Theatre, as one expected, the Luka and the Nastya are but parts in a large and wonderful cast. In the American theatre and even in the Yiddish Art Theatre, the tendency was to make them focal, to play for the star. A perfect cast in almost every case was that of Saturday afternoon. Ivan Lasareff as the actor, Giorgi Burdzhaloff as Kostilyoff, Vera Pashennaya as his wife, and Nina Litovtseva as Anna created unforgetably fine characterizations. The Pepel of Peter Baksheieff, while it was exceptional in its way, seemed out of tune with the playing of the rest of the company.

Once again the groupings had an incomparable finish and beauty. Scene followed scene in which the actors were placed in positions that formed triangles. The eye would no sooner become conscious of such a grouping before it was gone, and apparently without intention, another and still more interesting arrangement was effected. The mob in the third act was the best handled stage mob that I have ever seen. There was limitless life to it. Characters, regardless of importance, had individual "business" to do. The scenes that remain indelibly on the mind after seeing "The Lower Depths" were the one in which Luka hid to hear the discussion between Vassilisa and Pepel. Luka's praying by the bed of Anna, and the amazing beginning of the fourth act when there are three groups on the stage playing games and singing, and there is life and vitality and beauty in each one of the groups.