{Study Following the plan of his '"Abraham Lincoln," John Drinkwater, in his new play, ''Oliver Cromwell" (published recently by Sidgwick and Jackson, 3s. 6d, net), has dealt with the Protector in a series of scenes.
There are eight in this play, and from a rough calculation, they would take not quite two hours to perform.
Tha play opens at Ely in 1639, when Cromwell is on the eve of defying the King in the matter of common-land. Two years separate this scene from the next, which takes place at St. Stephens, at the time when the Remonstrance is being debated.
A, year later, we have Cromwell returning home: to raise more men, and then we are taken to Naseby in 1645, on the eve of the battle.
Two scenes are devoted to this important moment. From Naseby the scene changes to Hampton Court, when Cromwell and Ireton endeavour to persuade Charles to accept the offers of the Independents, but the King's perfidy is discovered in what should prove 'o be a dramatic scene.
The penultimate scene is on the day of the King's execution, and the play ends on, a homely nots. some six years later, with Cromwell praying beside his dying mother.
Comprrssep History.
Any schoolboy will see that the author has had to compress history to an extraordinary. extent. You might set an interesting ¢xamination paper on the incidents which have led to each separate scene. But a dramatist has not much traffic with history. If he makes his characters alive, and presents them more or less truthfully, he has succeeded in his task.
On the whole, John Drinkwater has done this successfully. His Oliver Cromwell is simple, clearheaded, kind, a great lover of music, and a still greater lover of freedom.
His speech is not quite as racy as one has imagined, but the author has endowed him with a strong will and astuteness.
The disconnected pageantry of the play does not allow much development, but here at least is an Oliver Cromwell with some of the characteristics of the great Protector.
On the stage he has been a most
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.