The Theatre
[" THE MAN THEY BURIED." By KAREN BRAMSON. AT THE AMBASSADORS THEATRE. " IP WE But KNEW•" BY ANDREW SOUTAR. AT THE COMEDY.-—" MANY HAPPY RETURNS." BY HERBERT FARJEON. AT THE DukE OF YORK'S.] TKEY buried the man, in the first-mentioned play's title, by familiar medical methods : the doctors condemned him to death, and he didn't die. Or perhaps it would be fairer to say that auto-suggestion nearly killed him.
As a layman, with a morbid interest in disease, I could see at once, when Georges Duhamel (Mr. Owen Nam) began suddenly to writhe in agony, that the symptoms so skilfully indicated by the actor were those of stomach-ache ; always called appendicitis in Harley Street. I could have warned Mr. Nares, or M. Duhamel—a name unpardonably stolen from one of the best-known of living French writers. The hero, however, is sure that he has cancer. Naturally ! He has been studying this plague. He has discovered a serum.
Duhamel's behaviour, after this first attack, is odd. It suggests that he may be suffering also from softening of the brain. He immures himself ; until he is at last lured from his room to "see life," and so to forget or minimize his ail- ments. Now, "seeing life," in many plays and in all films, means making a tour of the underworld. So we see Georges wandering, progressively unshaved, amongst moralizing tramps under nocturnal bridges, amongst light ladies in night clubs (as we now call them), and even testing a clair- voyante in a totally unnecessary scene. Georges, the wanderer, becomes a little tedious, monotonous ; and we are glad to return at intervals to his forlorn but fascinating wife (by Miss Jeanne de Casalis, who also plays a light lady in a false nose). We lose sight of George's serum. He tried it on himself for the disease he hadn't got. Nothing is proved against it.
All through, Mr. Owen Nares gives his true sincerity and simplicity of style to the part of Duhamel. He makes it seem genuine, a creation, a character ; he cannot, I am afraid, make clear to the audience the mysterious workings of
managerial minds, which select disquieting tracts hie these, in occasional variation of the crook programmes with which I am sadly behbadhand.
Briefly, I may call attention to the latest instalments of the Wallace serial—The Squeaker at the Apollo, The Flying Squad at the Lyceum ; to the brilliant acting-success of Mr. Charles Laughton in the very popular Alibi at the Prince of Wales ; and to that of Miss Valerie Taylor as an irresistible feminine crook in The House of the Arrow at the Vaudeville : • a rather, cumbersome story. But this production will be remembered, since it gave us the last performances " on any stage" of poor Dennis Eadie, whose memory we salute in affection.
A word or two also about Herbert Farjeon's brilliantly amusing songs and turns in his revue Many Happy Returns at the Duke of York's. Mr. Farjeon is one of our few recognizably original writers of light verse. His skits upon modern maulers, modern popular paintings, his exquisite reminiscences of antique sports, seem to me to touch high-water mark for satire of this kind.
The new play at the Comedy is, I believe, a first effort. If so, it shows promise. The interest is concentrated on the middle act, where the hero, disguised as a money-lender, finds that job an excellent post for the detection of family and society secrets. His wife is being blackmailed by a bad fellow whom she once thought she loved. But that was long ago. And it isn't a sin—is it ?—to have loved and lost a rotter before one has met the ideal husband ? Why all the fuss and fear ? And do money-lenders dress like wizards and live in upholstered caves ? What, those financial gnats who tease one on baronial notepaper for our notes of hand without security ? This act is too long, but it excites curiosity. It makes one want to interview a wizard money-lender in his' cave, if only the money-lender could be as profoundly Shylockian as Mr. Franklin Dyall in this part.
RICHARD JENNINGS.
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