CONTEMPORARY ARTS
THEATRE
"count Your Blessings." By Ronald Jeans. (Wyndham's.)
MR. AND MRS. BUrrERWORTH. have two interrelated projects for keeping the wolf from the door of their rather large London house. The first is to take in lodgers ; the second (necessitated under the rather complicated terms of an aunt's will) is to divorce each other, thus making I forget which of them eligible for the legacy, and afterwards remarry. These two plans follow the contemporary fashion set by Whitehall in being closely integrated and completely unsuccessful. The lodgers pay rent as reluctantly as our hens in Gambia lay eggs ; and the lady selected from among them by NIr. Butterworth to play the part of the Other Woman, though willing enough, is soon at cross purposes with another tenant who needs her landlord as a co-respondent. And so it all goes on, in a flurry of pyjamas and misunderstandings: a moderately amusing show which leaves us in the end thinking, rather wistfully, that if this sort of thing has to be done at all it ought to be done by Mr. Ben Travers.
Mr. Naunton Wayne, alternately helpless and resourceful, does very well as Mr. Butterworth, and Miss Joyce Redman, after an uncertain start, plays his wife with admirable attack and a good sense of comedy. But the best performance comes from Miss Viola Lyel as a coy but ardent spinster, an instructress in ballroom dancing ; the part is a rather obvious caricature of reality, but Miss Lyel's skill and gusto lend it a compelling air of brilliance. The production, by Mr. Charles Hickman, is not very stylish ; but
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