CONTEMPORARY ARTS
THEATRE
a Captain Brassbound's Conversion." By George Bernard Shaw. (Old Vic.) THIS production had, on the first night, an air of uncertainty about it. The play, which is not a very good one at the best of times, seemed, to revive with a bad grace, and the acting lacked that glitter which might have tlinded us to the clumsy contrivances of the plot and the dialogue's recurrent lapses into facetiousness. The scenery was tasteless in a conventional sort of way and the costumes of the Arabs suggested medical students taking part in a rag.
Lady Cicely Waynflete is charming, resourceful and unscrupulous, and Miss Ursula Jeans exhibits these qualities very well ; but she embodies also a feminine brand of Shavian logic, and it is by virtue of this, rather than of her wiles and her charms, that she ultimately dominates every situation. Though Miss Jeans' performance is always delightful, her Lady Cicely gives the impression of being guided by caprice as much as by reason. Mr. Roger Livesey's Brassbound looked every inch the Anglo-Brazilian gun-runner but he plays the part in a level, almost subdued, manner which does not really suit either it or him. Mr. Mark Dignam is crisply and unfailingly effective as Sir Howard Hallam, but Mr. William Devlin (surprisingly) discovers nothing of interest in the missionary Rankin and Mr. John Blatchley's Drinkwater is fatally marred by a tendency to scamper about the stage like a Shakespearean clown. The Arab dignitaries and the American naval captain are played in a manner more congruous to the better type of amateur dramatic society than to the Old Vic, and apart from Mr. Dignam the only really satisfactory performance comes from Mr. Douglas Wilmer in the small part of Redbrook, which he plays very stylishly. The whole production, one must reluctantly record, is not one of Mr.
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