CONTEMPORARY ARTS
THEATRE
THE Madwoman was a succes Jon in New York ; and this country, which spends half its time grizzling because we see eye to eye with America (" subservience ") and the other half worrying itself to death because we don't (" split in the very corner-stone," &c.), will have to decide whether or not to ratify the favourable transatlantic verdict. I, for one, find myself unable to do so. Even in an allegorical fantasy, which is more or less what this play is, there must be some basis of reality. Postulate, if you like, large oil deposits in the subsoil under Paris ; create, by all means, a com- bine of unscrupulous men who aim to exploit them and destroy the city in the process ; and oppose their full designs only with the wiles of a lunatic old lady. In this genre that will do for a plot. But in order to interest your audience in it you must relate, however distantly, what goes on on the stage to what goes on in the world ; and it does not seem to me that M. Giraudoux does this. His villainous financiers are taken, not from life, but from the expres- sionist drama of a bygone decade ; how often, how painfully often, have we seen them before, a stereotyped chorus intoning harshly in unison, with their black coats and umbrellas and cigars. The little people whose happiness they threaten have no life of their own ; they are as wooden- as skittles, and serve much the same purpose. And the Madwoman ? Effectively bedizened, Miss Nlartita Hunt, in a performance of great though rather restless virtuosity, does her utmost for the scatter-brained countess ; and a scene in which she entertains three equally dotty contemporaries (among whom Miss Angela Baddeley particularly distinguishes herself)' comes briefly to life before the action is once more sub- ordinated to the exigencies of allegory. But in the end the whole thing leaves us with a feeling of confused and rather aimless pre- tentiousness. This may be partly due to a pedestrian production, the pace and technique of which combine to suggest that what we see is, if not larger, certainly longer than life.
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