IT seems scarcely credible that a play about Hamlet in
a Highland mental home could so move and delight a play-hardened audience in the capital of Scotland, but it undoubtedly succeeded in doing so. The counterfeit presentation of mental illness is a risky venture for the most expert man of the theatre—but Mr. McLaren has largely brought it off. He will have to soft-pedal on his less sympathetic characters--,-Doctors Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern, the Jewish refugee specialists anxious to immure an interesting specimen, Horatio, the humour- less young assistant physician, and the pompous matron. A touch of the loving observation which makes the patients— especially Mr. Fordyce—so vividly alive would bring those others back to scale, and so maintain the balance of an admirable play "of infinite jest and most excellent fancy."
In the event of this piece being transferred , .. to a London theatre, the enterprising manage-
ment '. would doubtless find it quite necessary . to engage a star actor to play the role of Hamlet. In so doing they would be guilty ' of injustice to Douglas Storm, who gives a really sensitive and subtle performance in . this rather distinguished play, as the Prince of Denmark come to Inverlogie in quest of his soul. It would be unthinkable, however, to replace Miss Lennox Milne as Sister Chisholm and Tom Fleming as Dr. Macdonald—the other two outstanding performances in the Gateway presentation of Mr. Moray McLaren's first play. Their rendering of their most sympathetic roles won the audience's hearts from the first scene.
D. C. T.
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