STAGE AND SCREEN
The Theatre " To-night at 8:3o." By Noel Co4rard. At the Phcenix Theatre I WONDER what he's like on the tightrope ? " pardonably mused the lady on my left. We were nearing the close of the second of the two alternating programmes of three short plays: Mr. Noel Coward, in addition to being their author, had revealed himself as actor, producer, composer, and dancer with effortless success ; there seemed to be a feeling abroad among his more insatiable admirers that he might have thrown in some more flamboyant proof of versatility— ventriloquism, perhaps, or snake-charming.
But Mr. Coward had done what, in his programme manifesto, he had set out to do ; he had, indubitably, " provided a full and varied evening's entertainment." Two of them, in fact. Family Album—slight, repetitive, unoriginal, a shade too unmistakably Coward in texture—had nevertheless amused ; the gravest criticism which can be levelled against this elaborate Victorian' repudiation of the proverb de mortuis nil nisi bonum is that the family circle is little more than a geometrical expression, with the minor characters—which might have been the funniest of all—mere cyphers. It was followed by The Astonished Heart, a clipped but powerful domestic drama, whose spare and subtle dialogue exhibited to great advantage Mr. Coward's gift for writing between the lines. As partners in a guilty passion Mr. Coward and Miss Lawrence were taut and tortured and laconic, implying rather than expressing their emotions ; as far as acting honours went, Miss Alison Leggatt outshone them with a beautifully-timed portrayal of the injured wife. The first programme ended with Red Peppers, wherein Mr. Coward and Miss Lawrence showed us in cross-section the private and the public lives of two second-rate variety artists. As a " turn " the sketch was brilliant ; yet could it not have been something more than a turn ? There were openings, in the hand-to-mouth existence of these resilient, sparrow- like creatures, which a Chaplin or a Clair might have exploited : a slightly deeper realism, a touch of pathos, might have raised to the status of drama an entertainment too strongly reminiscent, as it stands, of unusually inspired charades.
The second programme opens with Hands Across the Sea, a play in one.scene which, to my great regret, I did not see. I understand it to be a brilliant essay in Mr. Coward's most flippant manner. Fumed Oak, described for the first time in its long and honourable career as " an unpleasant comedy," reminds us that even a worm will turn. Mr. Coward plays the suburban worm in an admirable make-up and an authentic accent. Miss Lawrence, though her own personality and the dialogue combine to make her more sympathetic than is alto- gether healthy for the balance of the play, transforms herself wonderfully into a nagging housewife ; Miss Alison Leggatt does further injustice to mothers-in-law, and Miss Moya Nugent presents the awkward age in suitably repulsive effigy.
• Shadow Play, which ends the second triple bill, is the least successful and the most interesting of the six pieces. Victoria Gayforth (Miss Lawrence) is—like almost all her creator's characters who qualify for super-tax—at the end of her emotional tether. She seeks relief from frayed nerves, and oblivion of impending divorce, in a sleeping draught which is just a little too potent. Half-dreaming, half- delirious, she and her husband recapture intermittently the lovely-essence of their early love.- As a technical experiment Shadow Play is a suggestive failure ; rather more obvious treatment—a sharper definition of the boundaries between past and present, illusion and reality—might have made it a notable innovation in dramatic technique. As it stands, it is a puzzling, pleasing chiaroscuro, charmingly illumined by the grace and beauty of Miss Lawrence.
If one cannot but feel disappointment that no one of Mr. Coward's six plays reveals to the full the possibilities either of his genius or of his medium, one cannot but admire whole-heartedly his many-sided ability to entertain. Miss Lawrence supports him with wit and glamour ; and the acting of Miss Alison Leggatt and Mr. Alan Webb, and the decors of Mrs. Calthrop, contribute to fulfil Mr. Coward's wish
" that a good time be had by all." PETER FLEMING.
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