THE THEATRE
Frieda." At the Westminster.—Ballets Negres. At the Twentieth Century.
THERE have been few recent plays as contemporary as Frieda, which is the story of an English airman who marries a German nurse and escapes from Germany bringing her with him in 1945. The varied reactions of his people to his German wife are portrayed with truth- fulness and skill, and his own somewhat uncertain character is deftly indicated, aided by sympathetic acting by Jack Allen. But it is Frieda herself (played with dignity and affecting restraint by Valerie White) who interests us most. The gradually developing accept- ance of Frieda is broken by the advent of Frieda's brother, a Nazi. The play then takes a melodramatic turn which may make it popular but which diminished its interest for me. It is, however, a play many people will enjoy.
I can hardly recommend a visit to the Ballets Negres company now at the Twentieth Century Theatre. These dancers, headed by Berto Pasuka, who is a talented dancer and choreographer, have an individual art from which our own more sophisticated dancers might learn much. But their ballets, such as De Prophet by Pasuka, are utterly different from European ballet and owe their racy quality to the special genius of the negro people. The subjects are West Indian: a Jamaican religious maniac ; a market-day ; the atractive music is chiefly influenced by negro spirituals, and the settings are delightfully vivid in colour and bold in design. An
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