New Play in Manhattan

The First Law. In reality anything might happen if a bearded Bolshevik, a lovely Britisher and her fragile blue-blooded fiance were snowbound for several weeks in a one-room cabin on the Siberian steppes. But in the theatre only one thing would be likely to happen--after both men had been seized with an overwhelming urge for the maiden, one of them would prove a cad, the other would enjoy the cabin as a quasi-nuptial chamber. All this is true of The First Law. Since it was written by Dmitry Schlegov, a Soviet Russian, the British fiance is the cad. He is removed by the Bolshevik in a tussle over a hatchet. The problem is then posed as to whether the girl could live happily with her Russian in his own striving milieu, minus Claridge's and cabriolets. The stolid Slav does not think so, plods off alone. These platitudinous doings are described as "the first play to come out of Soviet Russia." Actor Leonid Snegov, onetime member of the Moscow Art Theatre, gave an occasionally trenchant air to the piece. The play lasted six days.