THEATRE
Great dames
HILARY SPURLING
Dames at Sea (Duchess) Fuzz (Jeanetta Cochrane) The thoughtful impresario, and there must be many in our midst, may well feel a twinge of envy as he ponders the 'now 'thirties', the period when this musical takes place: a time when, though Wall Street topple, though bulldozers roam down Broadway and panic sweep the theatres, the us navy was at hand to retrieve first night disaster. The flustered leading lady, accepting a batch of sailors to replace her mislaid male chorus line, pauses in momentary misgiving: 'But can they tap?' On this ship, they can,' replies the captain, too courteous to return a silly answer to what was, in the circum- stances, plainly a quaintly silly question.
For this world is nothing if not beauti- fully ordered. Dames at Sea concerns one, Ruby, who, arriving fresh from Utah, falls into the clutches of the appalling Mona Kent: Mona is cruel, capricious, greedy, armed with Helen's looks and Odyssean cunning, not to mention stardom in innu- merable shows; Ruby is meek, shy, frail, friendless and perfectly free from guile. But, as between a vamp in a silver romper suit and an innocent in cotton print, it is not hard to guess which way fate's Oe are
loaded. And, when Ruby steps between one chorus number and the next into the star- ring role, even the maddened Mona controls the grinding of her teeth long enough to wish her rival luck. 'Just think, Ruby,' says a friend as our heroine stands wondering amid the bouquets, the telegrams from Roosevelt and Al Jolson, the applause of a frantic nation, 'just think: only this morn- ing you were on a bus with nothing but a pair of tapshoes—and a prayer in your heart.'
Sheila White as Ruby is a gem hard to price too highly; the rest of this tiny cast is admirably composed; the book and lyrics are by George Haimsohn and Robin Miller, the music by Jim Wise, and the whole directed by Neal Kenyon with a miniatur- ist's precision and exquisitely fine art.
At the opposite extreme, Peter Terson's Fuzz shows the National Youth Theatre at its best, in excellent voice and well drilled by Michael Croft. Mr Terson is by far the most versatile, as well as the most engaging of our playwrights—admittedly not, for the most part, an engaging crew — and, here, tightly knit groups of politically motivated youth come under his humorous and specu- lative eye. 'Just look,' cries a rapturous re- cruit, gazing at the placards hoisted by protesting factions demonstrating in Hyde Park, 'just look: all those opinions!' The play seems to me too long by half, but otherwise delightful; and there is an uncom- monly natty performance by Edward Wil- son as a dapper, accommodating and re- sourceful, all-purpose student leader.
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