Unlikely Bubble
SOUTH SEA BUBBLE. By Noel Coward. (Lyric.) '0Usont les 'edges d'antattr—well, certainly i not in Samolo for a variety of reasons, the least of which is that Samolo is a tropical isle and location of Mr. Coward's latest study in the human comedy. Of many assessments on what is essential to real theatre, one of the soundest is Frank O'Connor's dictum : that there are no degrees of probability but onlY degrees of the skill and taste with which improbability is used. By this scale of measure' ment, the skill displayed is that of the blase cordon bleu adept at warming up yesterday's baked meats to provide for today's jollifica' tion; and it seems an excess of self-confidence to assume that any old thing will do for plot in 1956.
This storm in a Pacific teacup centres 011 Government House, where the pinkish Gover- nor, Sir George Shotter, and his consort, LadY Alexandra, become slightly entangled with 3 native political leader and his equally politically minded son. The old man is Old Etonian, the son very non-Etonian (white dinner jacket with sateen lapels, etc.). For no clear dramatic reason Lady Alexandra is seen carousing at midnight with the son, alone to a beach-hut. Potent drumming, more potent liquor, and that insidious tropical moonlight arc about to produce the inevitable conse: quince when the lady saves her virtue, he' husband's honour and, apparently, The EmPlte too, by beating her host on the head with a bottle.
Here the drama comes to a full-stop; Act 3' instead of providing a working-out, becomes merely a clearing-up, which is motivated solely by the young native's magnanimity and charm.
Joyce Carey as the Colonial Secretary's wife, is faintly offensive but basically just silly, an is put up as a foil for the devastating mono; syllabic wit of one Kennedy, a writer friend 01 the Governor's, who has just dropped in out Samolo. Miss Vivien Leigh as the pillar 0' Empire, looks and sounds like a carbon copy of all the Coward heroines since Ti!e Vortex: she can shrug her way through thus sort of thing effortlessly and does so on t1115 occasion.
Ronald Lewis as the dusky gallant makes a, good job of a tricky characterisation, slightly faulted by the Welsh undertones of his Samolan-English. Arthur Macrae as KenncdY has the meatiest part, a pure, unselfconscious parody of the author himself; only this character speaks lines carrying the authentic, Cowardian crackle—and not very many .". those. The question posed by this offering Is. how much taste and how much skill are the minimum necessary to make the improbable bearable?
A. V. COT°
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