Third Person. By Andrew Rosenthall. (Criterion.)
Tins well-made social problematic play was on at the Arts a few weeks ago, before the Lord Chamberlain had brought himself to license it for public performace. The young, the innocent and the readily outraged are in no real danger, for the text's tactful obliquity is beyond reproach. " Do I have to draw you a diagram ? " a character remarks at a delicate moment. An American architect returns from the war with a young man who settles down with the object of ousting the lady of the house. Normality is in the end victorious, but by this time one has come to think the architect a singularly slow-witted old teddy-bear. No matter ; it is a sound, well-mannered essay on a difficult theme, with fine performances from one and all—Roger Livesey, Ursula Jeans, Kenneth Hyde, Ruth Dunnidg, Denholm Elliott and Janette Scott. Mr. Hyde's satiny portrait of the dilettante who tries to make the triangle quadri- lateral is really quite admirable. Roy Rich produces this also.
IAIN HAMILTON,
Previous page
