THE THEATRE
“Volpone." At the Scala.
MR. Wourr concludes his season at the Scala with his production of Ben Jonson's Volpone or The Fox. This full-blooded fantasia on vice and corruption has all the subterfuges and intricacies of plot characteristic of its age, but it is made glorious by an extra- ordinary eloquence. The speech in which Volpone as mountebank sells his nostrum—deriving from Venus and Helen of Troy—is a masterpiece of sheer linguistic magnificence such as can be matched in no modern play. It is also just the sort of thing to which Donald Wolfit can do full justice ; but, indeed, Volpone is a part that suits him to perfection. He was well partnered by Brown Derby as his parasite Mosca, and other good performances were by Lionel Stevens (Voltore, the Advocate), Richard Goolden (Corbaccio) and Eric Adeney (Corvino). The trial scene in which the villains completely outwit the magistrates and secure the cbndemnation of the innocent is another superb scene which has lost none of its significance. Apart from the devastating figure of Lady Would-Be (Eric Maxon), the only other female character in the play is colourless, and Rosalind Iden was suitably innocuous. But what a richly comic play and what a chance for actors who can really speak the English language in its greatest splendour! I suggest that Mr. Wolfit should now add another of Ben Jonson's plays to his repertory. There is that superb play—perhaps his masterpiece—The Alchemist, which would be well worth reviving, and there is, of course, Bartholomew Fayre. JAMES REDFERN.
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