“Yours faithfully, “DAVID BELASCO.” “THE PHANTOM RIVAL.” “The Phantom Rival,” adapted by Leo Ditrichstein from an Austrian original by Ferenc Molnar, postulates that a woman idealizes the man whom she first loves and never forgets him; and, by presenting her extravagant notions about him in a dream and then showing,--in an individual case,--that he turns out to be a commonplace person, implies that the ideals founded in youth and cherished by females in after life are mistakes and absurd. It may be so. It probably is true that all ideals of human perfection are unsound and even ridiculous. It certainly is true that the longer we live and the more we see of human nature the more disappointed we are, in ourselves as well as in others, till we come at last to believe, as Lockhart wrote: “That nothing’s new and nothing’s true And nothing signifies!” The “visible dream” is an old device of the theatre and a good one. It was exceedingly well managed in this play--the only blemish, indeed, being a certain effect of monotony which, being inherent in the dramatic fabric, was ineradicable in the stage exhibition of it. The principal persons in this drama, which centres around “the dream,” are an American woman, _Mrs. Marshall_, and an Austrian, named _Sascha Taticheff_. In youth they dwelt in the same Brooklyn boarding house. Propinquity had a usual consequence. The girl, romantic, admired the youth and became fond of him. The youth was flattered and reciprocated. Then, suddenly, he went away, called back to his native land, taking a sentimental farewell and writing a letter filled with ardent vaporings. Years have passed. The girl has met and loved and married a successful American lawyer; they dwell together; they would be happy, in a staid, conventional way, were it not for the preposterous, boorish jealousy of the husband. He suspects his wife of having had an earlier lover and he tortures himself and her because of this suspicion, this paltry jealousy of “the phantom rival” of a youthful attachment. And then, by chance, in a public restaurant, _Taticheff_ and _Mrs. Marshall_, who is with her husband, meet again. Scarce able to recall each other, they exchange formal bows. Having returned to their home _Marshall_ badgers his wife about the stranger in the restaurant until, exasperated, she admits that she once knew _Taticheff_ and was fond of him; and, finally, she surrenders to her husband, who reads it, the farewell letter of her youthful sweetheart. The sentimental folly of that screed so amuses _Marshall_ that he declares himself cured of his jealousy, speaks of the writer with contempt, and, laughing heartily, goes out to a business conference. The wife, incensed by this cavalier attitude toward the object of her girlhood affection, rereads his perfervid protestations: then, falling asleep, she has a dream in which her _Sascha_ returns to her, at a fashionable ball, in, successively, the different characters