CONTEMPORARY ARTS
THE THEATRE
`'Point Valaine." By Noel Coward. (Embassy.) Poini Valaine is "a small island situated a mile or so south of one of the larger British West Indies." It owes its name to Linda Valaine, an enigmatic widow who runs the marine equivalent of a roadhouse upon this tropic strand. A certain lethargy, a sense of timelessness, affects the characters assembled there and is not wholly without its repercussions on the audience ; for though there are three acts divided into eight scenes the march of events is slow and the events themselves are not really very interesting.
First produced in New York thirteen years ago and now seen for the first time in London, this play is something of a curiosity. Of the 17 characters only four contribute anything to the theme of the play or to the advancement of such plot as it possesses. The re- mainder, though they occupy the stage for varying but substantial periods, are decorative and mildly amusing puppets whose main purpose seems to be to play out time. Against the vapid back- ground of their giggles and rum-punches three of the principals are locked in a drama of the passions to which the fourth plays chorus. Linda has for some years past been conducting a liaison—if so genteel a euphemism can cover the raw exigencies of lust—with her head waiter, a shambling, ape-like Russian called Stefan. But when Martin Welford arrives a less ignoble passion is kindled in her breast, which he reciprocates. Martin is a young English aviator, still shaken by his experiences after a forced landing and 13 days' privation in the Matto Grosso jungles (" We tried to catch animals at night," he says ; he is not a man of the world). Linda and Martin declare their passion (and Mr. Coward carries stut a reconnaissance in strength into the recesses of the human heart) and, Stefan being absent on the main island, settle down to a Night of Love. But Stefan returns unexpectedly—an advent which is perhaps slightly unfair to the audience—and arraigns Linda outside her bedroom in terms which can leave her new lover in no doubt as to what sort of a priority he has got. Sickened and disillusioned, Martin prepares to leave the island while Stefan, equally if not more upset, casts himself into the Caribbean and is torn to pieces by sharks. " I must get a new head waiter," cries the femme fatale as the curtain falls ; she has throughout shown herself to be an extremely practical administrator. Well, there it is, except that I have not mentioned a novelist with iron-grey hair, a small beard, and the almost inevitable name of Mortimer Quinn, who conceals a heart of gold behind that cynical and conceited facade which is de rigueur for literary characters on the stage ; Quinn, a detached type, does not actually do anything but sits around making pointed remarks, some of which are quite amusing. Mr. Anthony Ireland plays this stock figure effectively. Miss Mary Ellis brings out all the inscrutability of Linda and does an immense amot.nt for the play ; but she cannot quite succeed in endowing the character with that significance for which (if for any- thing) the rest of the piece seems to be designed as a framework. Mr. Allan Cuthbertson, as Martin, keeps as straight a bat as he can and shows promise : Mr. Ben-Astar as Stefan looks as if he had fagged for Caliban in Limbo, which is just how he ought to look ; and Miss Audrey Fildes plays an anaemic debutante very well indeed.
PETER FLEMING.
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