Ariadne in Mantua

Examiner of Plays' Summary:

This is a pseudo classical drama, sound in taste if rather precious in style, and more than a trifle dull in its sentimental dignity. It's action takes place in the Palace of Ferdinand Duke of Mantua, shortly before the Venetian expedition to Cyprus under Othello. The young Duke, betrothed to his cousin Princess Hippolyta,is suffering from a misogynists mental indisposition, for the cure of which, his shrewd uncle, the Cardinal sends for the Spanish Moorish stripling Diego, to sing him out of his moody melancholy. The Cardinal knows that, what the Duke does not, that Diego is really the Venetian courtesan Magdalen, once loved by him in the days of his wayward youth, and Diego swears to keep the secret. This he does in the course of long arguments of suppressed passion with his Ducal patient, whom however he speedily cures of his malady. The Duke and his mother and his betrothed are always on the verge of discovering the meaning of Diego's influence and his simulated indifference to his surroundings.But his love. Which is really the self sacrificing Magdalens, keeps him silent, and the psychological is never explained until Diego, playing the part of Ariadne in a masque at the Duke's wedding plays it so realistically that the players supposed death by drowning turns out to be an actual suicide and results in the discovery of his true sex and identity. Recommended for licence Ernest A. Bendall.