THE THEATRE.
[This week we say farewell to " Tarn " (A. Williams-Ellis) and welcome Mr. H. W. Massingham as our regular dramatic critic : we publish, therefore, a criticism from each.]
" A COMEDY OF GOOD AND EVIL," THE THREE HUNDRED CLUB.
THE Reverend John Williams and his wife were very poor. She had a wooden_ leg and a weak heart, and therefore it was Mr. Williams who added to a stipend of £15 a year by doing washing for the summer visitors, quoting as his pre- cedent the washing of feet. Although Mr. Williams was a great preacher, Mrs. Williams sometimes felt lonely on winter evenings, and wished very much that she had a little cat to keep her company. Hardly have we heard her express this wish—really a wish for something to happen—when they hear a scream outside and on their doorstep find a beautiful child. They bring it in, cherish it, and not unnaturally believe it to be a heavenly visitant that they have found. Unfortunately, however, the being—whom they decide to call Gladys—turns out to be nothing of the sort, but, instead, a small fiend. Upon making this discovery Mrs. Williams is for turning her out, but Mr. Williams, who is a considerable theologian, proves that to show anything but kindness to the little creature would be unchristian.
Mr. Hughes's play, which the Three Hundred Club presented last Sunday, is concerned with this situation and with the further complications to which it gives rise in the extremely inquisitive and religious village of Cylfant. Especially are detailed those which arise from Mrs. Williams' miraculous acquisition of a new flesh and blood leg, whose scandalous and independent conduct betrays its infernal origin only too clearly. Finally, a guardian angel, more usually known as Owain Flatfish, vendor of plaice and rabbits, exorcises ;Gladys with bell, book and candle. But in the last act, which takes place a year later, after Mr. Williams's death, his questionable conduct in harbouring Gladys damns his soul, until Gladys herself is guilty of the highly reprehensible and unprofessional conduct of smuggling her lawful prey into heaven.
To the freshness of such a plot Mr. Hughes has added the charm of agreeable characterization and of acutely obserlied and enjoyed local colour. I happen to know the district of which Mr. Hughes writes and can witness that A Comedy of Good and Evil is an encyclopaedia, not only of Welsh social habits, but of Welsh thought and character. I think Mr. Hughes must have greatly enjoyed writing this play, and in a sense certain faults that 'it has seem to spring from a too sauntering enjoyment. The river down which he is conducting us is so pleasant that he cannot resist constantly resting on his oars to float more slowly by this beauty or that. There is a kind of luxuriant amplitude, a lingering in the play that in a sense unfits' it for the stage. The atmos- phere of a theatre is somehow not leisurely enough for it as it stands. Yet such is the distinction, the light-handedness. and the humour of the play that we feel any sense of dis- appointment or of being baulked, as being a condemnation rather of the theatre than of the play. It makes us, in fact, realize sharply the inevitable, the drawbacks of a method in which we must be carried visibly and directly on from cause to effect, even if the cause be commonplace and the effect obvious. But the strolling sense which the play gave in the actual hour of its performance fades in retrospect, and one feels only that not for anything would one have missed a study so fresh, so unforced, so full of charm.
Mr. Hughes was extremely fortunate in his producer and his actors, Miss Louise Hampton giving an extremely beautiful and touching performance as the simple and much tried wife, Miss Baddeley was a child fiend at once subtle and innocent and brought out excellently many of the sub-flavours and sub-meanings of the character of Gladys. Mr. Leslie Banks was sonorous and sympathetic as the old rector, and the whole cast achieved that excessively difficult thing—a Welsh accent. Those who saw the play owe a debt of great gratitude to Mrs. Geoffrey Whitworth and the Three Hundred Club for making possible so extremely interesting a performance.
I had a special reason for enjoying Sunday night's play, because it is the last to which I shall go—at least for the magic year and a day—in an official capacity. A Comedy of Good and Evil is a delightful note upon which to say Goodbye to Spectator readers. I have been reviewing plays now for nearly four years and my mind has become like a piece of carbon paper, good perhaps for some time longer, but only if you shift it so that the types do not fall on the old lines. Books yes, but not plays any more. But the critic differs from the carbon paper in being organic. So perhaps a', some time—at the end of the year and the day—plays may again cause me that spontaneous desire to discuss and analyze without which no reviewer, whethft of plays or books, should dare to address his readers.
TARN (A. WILLIAMS-ELLIS).
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