Once upon a time I called Hermann Sudermann the Klingsor of the German stage, meaning thereby that he was a master of black magic. Of course, like most comparisons, this was a far-fetched one. Yet Sudermann is a master of theatrical machinery. With a pressure of his little finger he can set the wheels whirring and make their noise attractive if not precisely significant. This is the case with his latest offering, Der gute Ruf (Good Reputation), which captured Berlin at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus on the Friedrichstrasse. The play, in four acts, is a variation on its author\'s early theme, Honour. It is also a variant of his Joy of Life (Es lebe das Leben), translated by Edith Wharton, but with the difference that the motive of Honour was more malleable for the purpose of dramatic treatment, and also truer to life, while [Pg 218] in Reputation (as I suppose it will be called when translated) the thesis is too incredible for belief; hence the magician, wily as he is, scrambles about aimlessly in the last two acts, sparring for wind, and seemingly anxious to escape from a blind alley of situations. That he does it so well is a tribute to his technical prowess.

He knows how to write a play. This play would succeed in foreign countries where the Hauptmann and Schnitzler plays would fall down. The reason is because of the strong theatrical quality of the piece, and the grateful r?le for the heroine, a r?le that might have been written in Paris; indeed, the entire work, despite its local flavour, recalls the modern Parisian theatre of Bernstein & Co., because of its cynical satire, its mysterious intrigue, its doors and bells, its numerous exits and entrances.

A woman, rather a superwoman, the Baroness von Tanna, sacrifices her name—not of the best because she flirts—to save the good, nay, spotless reputation of her dearest friend, a millionaire\'s wife—who, in a "mad moment" (Aha!) becomes the beloved of a certain fascinating Max, a young and handsome ne\'er-do-well. To add to the piquancy of the situation, the baroness, a beautiful woman, and not, like her friend, the mother of children, is entangled in the same net; she, too, adores Max the heart crusher, though she will not cross the Rubicon for his silly sake. The usual "triangle" becomes star-shaped, for a new feminine [Pg 219] presence appears, a girl who is matched to marry the fatal Max. That makes five live wires; two husbands, two wives, a na?ve virgin, with Max as inaccessible as a star. But after a capital exposition, Sudermann gets us in a terrible state of mind by making the lady with the good reputation go off in a hysterical crisis, and almost confess to her stiff, severe husband—who is a maniac on the subject of his house being above suspi............