Meteor: Guild Theatre, December 23, 1929

New York Times, December 24, 1929

Megalomania at the Guild.

By J. BROOKS ATKINSON

When Mr. Behrman is introducing his galvanic principal character in "Meteor," which was put on at the Guild Theatre last evening, this third play from his engaging pen is most completely interesting. For the stormy Raphael Lord, around whom he has written another slightly fabulous drama, is a megalomaniac with "great talent and fanatical self-belief," to rifle the words applied to him by a psychologist. Such a character of purple passages and vaulting ambition is interesting enough in himself, and Alfred Lunt makes him fairly electric by the aggressive versatility of his acting. After the crackling first act the characterization of Lord remains almost rigid, and since the play is bound up heart and soul with this superman's indomitable energy, "Meteor" turns out to be only moderately entertaining after all. It is the best of Guild Plays this season. Mr. Behrman writes with admirable taste; and this most enjoyable of the Guild's' multitudinous companies, which includes Lynn Fontanne, Douglass Montgomery, Lawrence Leslie and Edward Emery, plays with refreshing adroitness under Mr. Moeller's direction. But the life that charges the first act with so much vitality dwindles away a good deal toward the end.

When Raphael Lord first turns up he is a restless, rude student in a small Massachusetts university. Most of the students laugh at his delusions of grandeur and take his professions of clairvoyance with a generous pinch of salt. Although Ann Carr, with whom he is in love, and Dr. Avery, who is one of the professors, are amused by his grandiose assertions of genius, they take him at least half seriously and recognize him as a person of uncommon capacities. Sure enough, by the time of the second act, five years later, he has begun to justify their cautious admiration. He is a master of finance, a Napoleon, in fact, with enterprises far and wide, and Ann Carr as his wife. He is lavish, generous and intolerable. For the moment he is absorbed in a tremendous oil speculation in South America, and he is at war with the buccaneers who are filching his leases and setting traps in his own organization. Fancying himself absurdly as a man of destiny, he enjoys toying with them, letting them go to dangerous extremities, so that in the end he may enjoy defeating them all the more. It very nearly ruins him. The newsboys, who are the Fates of modern drama, are crying the news of his colossal failure in the streets. At any rate, it costs him a wife who cannot endure his ruthless egotism. But as the final curtain falls you are given to understand that he is still the master of finance. He still has his competitors by the heel.

As "The Second Man" and his dramatization of "Serena Blandish" have indicated, Mr. Behrman is one of the neatest writers we have in the American theatre. He does not fall into hackneyed situations; he uses words that are apposite and clear. The lines ripple with humor and modestly sparkle with satire. What tempers your enjoyment of "Meteor" is the increasing objectivity of the chief character after colorful introduction of the first act. When he comes popping into the drama bowling down opposition and bearding a professor without so much as a by-your-leave; he appeals to the emotions, the credulity and the humor. But after he has succeeded in the second act he is an abstract study, directed at the intellect rather than the emotions; and all the complicated details of his business manoeuvres, which should be a part of his character, remain somewhat exterior, and confuse when they should illuminate. That is the long way round of the simple comment that "Meteor" runs down hill after act one. Or that characters are generally most interesting when they are developing in action.

Meteor: Guild Theatre, December 23, 1929