The Theatre
[THE )LIRQUISE. BY NOEL COWARD. AT TILE CRITERION THEATRE.]
1118• NOEL COWARD'S latest play is a neat piece of dramatic tailoring : he has cut out and fitted a part to Miss Marie Tempest. It suits her to perfection. The clothes provided arc, as it happens, of the eighteenth century ; but that was not essential. It is obvious that Mr. Coward has not bothered . much about correctness of language and environment. A few allusions to antiquated vehicles and the state of the roads, a few " dear hearts ! " scattered about the first act, a piece of padding in the form of a duel in the last—that is enough ; especially as the place is France, " not far from Paris." Mr. Coward has evaded the difficulty by pretending that his people spoke French. He has spared himself the trouble of diving into Fielding and Smollett for idioms and oaths, and us the shock of listening to them. For this we ought to be grateful. It was much more important that Miss Tempest should have another opportunity of sailing in and out, with her inimitable air of serene impudence, her unruffled equanimity ; managing men ; directing events without apparent effort ; soothing sulky families into amiability and making the most complicated matrimonial or amorous coincidences dissolve, or reunite -and right themselves—all without renouncing an atom of her ride or one of her prerogatives.
Things were getting rather dreary before the Marquise pped with a gloved hand upon the window of the Comte de Vriaac's country house. The Comte himself is a bore, to begin with. Like many a gay dog of the time, or earlier, like me of the insufferable hypocrites analysed in Sainte-Beuve's ort Royal, he has become divot, repentant and pious, in his addle age. Father Clement, a plump Tartufe, sits at his Mk, while a boisterously unrepentant companion in early rgies, Esteban (Mr. Frank Cellier), loudly toasts the approach- ng marriage of his son with the Comte's daughter. These co infants, very charmingly and naturally played by Miss Teen Sharp and Mr. Godfrey Winn, do not seem to be deeply n love. The voice of nature perhaps ; for, as a matter of act, both turn out to be the children of the Marquise. It as high time she tapped at the window. The Comte wants get rid of her as a relic of his evil past. Out she goes, and n again she comes, this time with a tale about an overturned oath. There's no getting rid of her. She will recognize er own long-lost family ; she will enquire, as a measure of recaution, whether any more of her sons and daughters appen to be dotted about the countryside ; and then she ill marry her daughter, and the Comte's, to the young secre- atY (Mr. Robert Harris), whose father and mother arc still fely alive.
The Comte, played by Mr. Graham Browne, remains a bOre, fear, until the end—even when he gets drunk. The Marquise ill have a dull time with him. For some reason, however, he wishes to be " cherished " by him, or, anyhow, to inhabit s Chateau in spite of the damp . and the black-beetles she nds or invents in the spare room. Miss Tempest cannot be xPreted to account for this mistaken desire in the Marquise return to her first love. One feels in watching her that she only does it to annoy "—at first ; and then goes on with it, ause, really, one must keep an eye, you will agree, on one's Versed children ; and finally settles down to it because re at poor dear old—or soon to be old—Comte wants a woman bout the house who will sing to of sweet memories by the inet. Ali, rash Marquise ! You, who look as if you would ever grow old, you will age rapidly it runisscrn as you sit, in inter evenings, beside your ageing lover, while your other ver, of the same age, drops in to beguile ennui and make kes in a very loud voice which will bring on a very loud ugh. Your daughter will escape .with the young secretary, d Your son will be making love to a singer in Paris. But Ile needn't worry about the Marquiie. Miss Tempest con- ees us that she will transforni all dull circumstances by the me of her own radiant " persona' lity "—a word I thought I card. modernizing the eighteenth-century dialogue. And the situation becomes tedious, the Marquise will be able to ur the dull Comte and the coarse Duke to another duel during which she will arrange for them to kill one another, just as she secured, while eating an orange so daintily, that they should not do one another any harm, when they fought in the last act. Might not the Marquise manifest a little anxiety during this scene ? Can she be sure that accidents never happen ? At that moment, she wanted the Comte to survive. It is a small objection. Apart from it, one can have nothing but admiration for Miss Tempest. Mr. Coward has given her a chance. She has turned it into a triumph.
RICHARD JENNINGS.
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