Theatre: New Play in Manhattan: Jan. 11, 1937

Promise (by Henry Bernstein; Gilbert Miller, producer). In 1907 Henry Bernstein's first Broadway production, The Thief, featured the late Kyrle Bellew, ran for nine months. His Melo, presented in 1931, gave Basil Rathbone two months' employment. Never the author of a distinguished play, Henry Bernstein in his native France is nevertheless a distinguished playwright, an able literary psychologist, a sensitive observer, a careful craftsman. It takes a little something more, however, to make a good play, and that, unanimously decided Manhattan reviewers, is what Promise has not got.

What this formless...