In the third of its Boston series, "Gold Eagle Guy," the Theater Guild brings forth what is by far the most pretentious and elaborate of its productions to date. A first play by Melvin Levy, it is the story of a robustious young seaman who comes to California in 1862 and remains, fascinated by the lure of yellow gold, to build with unscrupulous hand a vast merchant fleet. If the result falls somewhat short of an epic, the cast and the settings are not to blame.

The opening scene discloses Guy Button seated amongst the roaring denizens of the "Mantic" barroom, San Francisco's gaudiest. Even through this smoky atmosphere, Button sees his destiny writ large, and he decides to jump ship, revealing a rather dubious moral resiliency as he double-sells his boots and oil-skins to two less ambitious purchasers. Of a sudden the swearing and noise of glasses are awed to silence by the flouncing entrance of Adah Menken, a beautiful Jewish actress. Impressed by this lady, Button snatches her shawl, leaps back, and shouts ". . . Now, I'm part of you!"

Fortified with this spirit, Button has no great trouble in making the name of "Gold Eagle Guy" a power on the Pacific. He transports Chinese labor, marries his partner's fiance, and sails with brazen keel over all opposition. Faced in 1898 with ruinous Japanese competition, he steals government bullion from one of his own vessels, then scuttles her to conceal the deed. It is not money for which Button lusts, however, but rather power, and the ability to create. His faith in himself is colossal, and like Jeremiah, he shrouds all his actions in a sort of Old Testament Christianity.

The last scene centers in the private sanctum of the Gold Eagle Line, 1906. Here one sees plushy opulence indirect and each visitor must enter through a golden Arc de Trlomphe, from which dangles a heavy medallion. Young Guy comes gleefully in to tell his hated failure that the scuttled ship has been said vaged, and the crime thereby disclose Gold Eagle tries to reason, but failling that he invokes the Deity to descend upon on this wayward Absalom. At the dramatic moment, Heaven responds with a beautifully-handled earthquake, in which father and son perish as the Gold Eagle is rent in twain.

As a first play, "Gold Eagle Guy" by promising. It has vigor and dramatic power enough, but as an epic it lacks point. Guy Button, skilfully portrayed by J. Edward Bromberg, stands forth in the round, but his character is not of adequate significance to dovetail insaneness of pageantry. The number of minor characters is so bewilderingly large that mention of their respective merit is here impossible. But the "atmosphere" scenes are well and convincively done. The settings, designed by Donald Oenslager, elicited applause that was justly due, and the richness of the costumes bespeaks a rather optimistic attitude toward the play's longevity.