The Theatre
" Which . . .?" A Comedy by Antoine Bibeseo. At the Gate Theatre.
PruNcE ANTOINE BIBESCO has in this play equipped himself with the weapons of the Sphynx. The riddle he propounds to us has, like a quadratic equation, at least two answers ; but, for lack of an Oedipus, we are compelled to deprive ourselves of the pleasures of its final solution.
Paul, an earnest graduate of some rusty acaderly, of phil- andering, finds himself realeSs and bored hi a house With three apparently Virtuous women : Madeleine, his hostess, 'has previously rejected his advances ; Anne, her servant, is undisguisedly contemptuous'; Juliette's lack of interest Matches his fervour. Nevertheless Paul's confidence in the efficacy of his technique is such that he is willing to wager on his ability to gain a victory before dawn. Aided, by a con- venient thunderstorm which herds his intended victims up
and down the corridors, he appears in the middle of the night and proclaims that he has already achieved his object His assertion, however, meets with a threefold denial of com- plicity. Whereupon Paul merely remarks that in the morning the fortunate unknown will accompany hint to Paris, and returns to bed. But breakfast time, which might have been relied on to clear up the mystery, only brings further com- plications. Instead of the expected single downcast companion Paul finds three enthusiastic fellow travellers. Here Prince Bibesco's design is obscure. Does he intend us to conclude that in fact all three ladies had succumbed to the storm which, by the vehemence of their previous denials, we might have supposed they had satisfactorily weathered ? Or does he wish to pay court to a philosophical image, the concept that the most passionate form of any action, apart from actual indulgence, is a vigorous and energetic abstention, thereby binding the three women with the rope of individual or collective suggestion ? The point is not made clear. Any- how, whatever the dramatist's intention, it is obvious that Paul's plans are satisfactorily fulfilled. The Black Maria departs for Paris with four occupants.
The ingenuity of the plot is indifferently supported by the dialogue. It is probable that a less earnest presentation would have given greater force to its somewhat stilted indeli- cacies. Played nis fin it might indeed have been very effective. The credit for such measure of success as this production achieved must go to Mr. Eric Portman, whose solid philandering was at once its backbone and the cause of
Previous page
