"Anna Christie." By Eugene O'Neill. At the Westminster Theatre.—" Angelica.'
By Leo Ferrero. The Stage Society. At the Westminster Theatre
Anna Christie is, with one obvious exception, about the least successful of all Mr. O'Neill's plays ; it is only by comparison with the native resources of London theatre of today that it seems to merit a revival. Like most American plays which attempt to combine the tough with the symbolic it is inordin- ately sentimental, its plot is inconclusively developed, and half its imagery is fake ; if these faults are to be redeemed it must be extremely well performed. This production was wrecked from the start by an almost incredible error of casting. Miss Flora Robson is an actress of impressive physique and strong personality who; as everyone knows, has no better in extracting the full effect from the most tempestuous scne a faire ; the essence of Anna Christie is her physical insignificance and, in the first part of the play, her dumb and wilting passivity. In the second half of the play, when Anna Christie has recovered the power of thought and speech, and turns on her lover and his father, Miss Robson's performance is vivid and effective. But for the first half she is at cross purposes with Mr. O'Neill over her part, and her emancipation does not develop naturally or plausibly out of her earlier misery. .Mr. Niall MacGinnis plays the sailor with spirit, and Mr. Edward Rigby prevents his father's senile obsession with the sea from • becoming unduly oppressive. With a less incongruous Anna to assist them, their performances would have seemed even better than they did.
Angelica, which the Stage Society presented for a single performance last Sunday, is an earnest and exceptionally tedious fable about a young hero who rids a fantastic city of its tyrant, finds its inhabitants unenthusiastic towards democracy, and dies as the result of his principles. The author has decorated rather than resolved his theme, his narrative method is highly uneconomic, and his satire has as much bite as a lapdog. The chief merit of this production is that it may prevent Angelica from being inflicted on a less specialised audience.
DEREK VERSCHOYLE.
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