6 DECEMBER 1935, Page 14

STAGE AND SCREEN

The Theatre..

'5` Storm Song." - By Denis Johnston. At the A. D. C. Theatre, Cambridge FOR the last thirty-five years; Ireland has maintained a scarcely challenged ascendancy over the English theatre. The reason is primarily political. The Irish Literary Theatre had the inestimable advantage of being born into a period of intense social disorder. Its growth went side by side with the expansion of nationalist feeling which found political expres- sion in the rebellions of 1916 and 1921, and the success of its dramatists arose largely froin the fact that they had in this rising tide of nationalism, as English dramatists had not, a dramatic subject which went straight to the heart of their audiences. SithilarIy, the decline of the Abbey dates from the Treaty. It had started by being in advance of political thOught, but it had been gradually outstripped by the political awareness-which it had assistedtO develop, and by 1925 most of its dramatists were clearly still playing tunes *hid' had lost their magic years before. This was the opporturiitY of the Gate Theatre. The Gate was founded in 1925, and soon showed that it was more in touch with Irish thought than was the Abbey. Its members recognised that the elements in Irish life which were of dramatic interest had changed, and they introduced modern European theatrical forms in place of the exhauSted traditions of the Abbey.' The most important member of the theatre is Mr. Denis Johnston, whose best work seems to nie to be quite as important to the theatre today as were the plays of Synge and Mt% Yeats at the beginning of the century. Storm Song is not his beat work, but the most slight and least impressive play that he hris so far written. Nevertheless, it cannot be judged by the standards that one summarily applies to the. average contemporary play. Mr. Johnston's Writing is always distinguished 'even where his subject is trivial, and this Play, which is a failiire because its subject is in essence trivial throughout, is still worth half a Africa Popular successes. The scene of StOrm. Song is' set' on an Wand off the west cciast of Ireland where a 'doennientary film is being made. Szilard, the director,- is 'a' fanatic for the camera ; he has spent the- summer on the island making a truthful record of the islanders' life, and although he knows that the storm sequence which lie wants for the climak of the film could be eaSi13, and as effectiVely faked in the studios, he refuses to leave the island until he has had a chance to photograph a 'genuine . Storm... After :Weeks of delay the storm arrives, and Szilard loses his life attempting to take the fishermen retrieving their nets in the gale. His death is ingeniously capitalised by the film company, and the film proves a .resounding commercial success. This theme; down to Szilard'S death, is presented with remarkable theatrical skill ; there is comic invention as well as straightforWard dramatic force in Mr. Johnston's pictures of the film unit struggling againSt obstacles arbitrarily imposed by headquarters, in their relations with the islanders, in their 'encounter with a droVe of vacuous visitors, and in Szilard's emotional rivalry with Gordon King, an assistant whOse cinematic theories are militantly at variance With his All thCsC keries r&OWO around the dynaMin character of Szilard. The two scenes in which he does not appetirlire less successful ; the' One, an interlude in a 'Muse on the mainland opposite the island, is good enough in itself as a draMatie exercise, but does not belong to the structure of the play'; the other, in a London cinema afterthe filth's premiere, is flat and ineffective.' The last scene leaves one with the suspicion that Mr. Johnston realised as well as anyone that the theme was not really worth his attention. The leading parts in the A.D.C. productiim are well, and the subsidiary partS inadequately, filled. Mr.' Marne Mait- land's Szilard is a' performance 'of which any • professional actor might be proud, Arid Mr. Andrew Wiusees study of his Assistant Gordon King, Mr George Rylands' superb burlesque Of a comatose nobleirian, and Miss 'Teresa: Mayor's portrait of another of the visitors' ta the island alsb deniand high' Praise. But the effect of the 'PrOduCtiOn was gravely diminished by performances in some of the 'smaller parts whichgave evidence of insufficient rehearsal, .and catastrophic attempts at an