25 OCTOBER 1935, Page 15

STAGE AND SCREEN

"Romeo and 'Juliet." By William Shakespeare. Produced by John Gielgud. At the New Theatre

Not- can't make an omelette without breaking eggs, but you can make,a shambles without breaking hearts ; and in most Productions of this play the tragedy does not shock us as it .Should. Only a Nahum Tate could give it a happy ending, but by our sophisticated standards the disaster of the final scene is the less bitter for being total. We are almost relieved When Juliet finds the dagger, and when the curtain falls our superstitious, sentimental souls find comfort, because in death the lovers were not divided. All through the play it has been -separation, and only separation, that they dreaded, and we dreaded for them ; at the end of the play they are irre- Movably:together, and our melancholy is the mellower for it.

It is the chief of what may be called the intellectual excellences of Mr. Gielgud's production that it brings out to the full the cruelty of the lovers' fate. Doom echoes faintly through the languors and the conflicts of the earlier scenes, and Mr. Gielgud's unrivalled ear has caught each echo. They are transmitted to us, not in a portentous way, but unmis- takably ; and at last all correlated and brought to a climax when Romeo, phial in hand, upbraids by implication the " inauspicious stars." A long trail of hints, skilfully conveyed by atithor and producer, leads up to that moment ; and when it comes we tealise completely what a colossal, what a horrifying slice of bid` luck the whole thing is. A potent aid• to this realisation is the judicious emphasis, given to the whole business. (too often scamped) of Friar Laurence's letter to Mantua ;. there is no more brilliant stroke in the play than the half-dozen lines in which Shakespeare allots ultimate re- sponsibility for the lovers' deaths to the sanitary inspectors ef Verona. The stars, their families' hates, their own folly— these my have had a hand in the catastrophe ; but it .1vould never have happened at all if the municipal authorities had not pid a monk in quararitine. There is a terrible pro- bability in this. •

As for .111e visual side of the production, the costumes are delightful, the sets and their swift alternation above praise, and the quality of the lighting can seldonk have. been bettered in a London theatre. Its qriantity, however, is parsimonious ; this Verona is a sunless place, in which guards and gallants, hOweVer difficult they 'find it to control the hot blood of the South, have been too unanimously successful in keeping it oat of their cheeks. The sword play is sadly lacking in dash, and it is a pity, when the 'rival parties have to do so much bombinans, to make them do it in vaeuo ; Mr. Gielgud could afford to crowd his streets a good deal more for the scenes of brawl and action.

But these are minor criticisms of a most beautiful and intelligent production. Those who saw Miss Peggy Ashcroft and Miss Edith Evans in Mr. Gielgud's production of this Play for the O.U.D.S. felt that their performances could not he bettered; but they have. There is a triumphant beauty in Miss Asheroft's Juliet, a passion not to be gainsaid ; from the first we tremble for the child who challenges with such a kwe the inauspicious 'stars. Technically her performance is Perfection ; there is no one like her for conveying the sense of a difficult passage without, so to speak, being caught in the 9et---,-without unwittingly making us pause 'to admire her 'virtUosity: She does more than make Shakespeare's expres- 810n of Juliet's thoughts seem natural;' she, makes it seem inevitable. 'Miss Evans' Nurse is a superb gossip, richly human, bringing the play down to earth whenever she appears : 9 hind of go-between between the stars and I he sanitary laSpectors. Mr. Laurence Olivier's handsome Romeo lacks Poetry and, more important, authority ; except in the last scene, this admirable actor hardly seemed to' hold the stage, and Romeo remained an eager, anadous 'shadow. Mercutio is an engaging cross between' Colonel .Sapt and Rupert of rtentzau, and Mr. Gielgud played him with elegance and fire. There was an excellent performance from Mr. Frederick Lloyd 9s Capulet, and •Messrs. George Devine and George Howe did Well as Peter and Friar Laurence. But it was really Miss