27 OCTOBER 1944, Page 11

THE THEATRE

Hamlet," "Love for Love" and "The Circle " At the Hay- ' market.—" The Breadwinner." At the Arts.

WITHIN the last year London has seen three productions of Hamlet —Mr. Donald Wolfit's, Mr. Robert -Helpmann and Mr. Guthrie's, 3tict Mr. Gielgud and Mr. Rylands', and I have to record what will seem to many-readers the strange fact that it is the last that has made the worst impression upon me. Although Hamlet is a role much less suited to Mr. Wolfit than, for example, Volpone or Richard III, he made a brave show in it. Mr. Helpmann, in spite of limited experience and physical handicaps, gave a highly intelli- gent and a very moving performance ; but the Hamlet of Mr. Gielgud—and again I emphasize, how strange! —left me admiring but completely cold, almost stone-cold. The first requisite in criti- :ism is to receive an impression, the stronger and more definite the better, but the next is to be able to analyse and explain it. If the critic fails to get a strong impression he will have little of value to say, and failure to respond is what every good critic fears most. There was in this case no doubt of my impressicin ; Mr. Gielgud's Hamlet moved me not at all, indeed I was bored, and it was only the direct and seemingly artless Ophelia of Peggy Ashcroft that stirred the play momentarily into life for me. Up till then all had been mere eloquence, admirable academic eloquence. Every in- flection of voice, every phrasing of Mr. Gielgud's is intelligent, almost every gesture also ; but some of his rapid, slightly contor- tionist movements and attitudes are either too studied or too self- conscious • certainly they are not those of Shakespeare's Hamlet, who though clever is essentially spontaneous, which Mr. Gielgud never is. And this.explains why his performance is cold, although it is skilful to the point of sheer virtuosity. But there is nothing so boring as viritiosity. which is nothing more than virtuosity, so I cannot join my colleagues-in 'their, to me, extravagant praise of this Hamlet. If, as they maintain it is perfect, it is a dead and chilling perfection.

To see Mr. Gielgud in The Circle after Hamlet is to think inune- diately that he does not act the part of Arnold Champion-Cheney, M.P., so much as impersonate him. That nervous, keen intelli- gence and impeccable manner are surely Mr. Gielgud's own, he does not need to ac.t them, and to see him only in these two plays, which reveal respectively his limitations and his personal gifts, might make one wonder why his reputation as an actor is so high. But in Love for Love, a highly artificial comedy in which Mr. Gielgud seems natural—which he never does as Hamlet—his virtuosity is hid under the cloak of Congreve's equal..y refined extravagance and, revelling in his author's merely technical brilliance and remoteness from the language of the heart, actually appears to be spontaneous, so, in this play, we can appreciate his art without reservation.

The Circle is hailed as Mr. Maugham's masterpiece ; but for me it is no more than a smart, 'effective piece of theatricality and worldly wisdom in which the spontaneity and charm of Yvonne Arnaud effortlessly knocks the author's thesis sky-high: whoever stole such a woman from another man would surely never repent it. A better play is Mr. Maugham's The Breadwinner, in which Mr. Denys Blakelock gives a very attractive performance. It is also very well cast—so much so that on a brief acquaintance I could not tell whether to attribute Miss Constance Lome's performance as the wife to brilliant acting or the accident of life-like impersonation.

must, however, give her the benefit of believing it was brilliant acting. This is the most horrible woman, one would say, that Mr. Maugham ever portrayed, were it not that the other wife—also represented brilliantly (but this I am sure was acting)—by Jean Anderson is an equal masterpiece in sheer horror.

JAMES REDFERN.