"Storm in a Teacup." Adapted by James Bridie from the
Comedy by Bruno Frank. At the Royalty Theatre.
Ma. Baum: is not afflicted with that craven fear of being great which keeps Mr. Coward from being consequential. He is an honest and aspiring dramatist and his worst work, even more emphatically than his best, suggests that his strength may one day do much more than ring the bell. Storm in a Teacup, which is neither his best nor his worst but some- body else's work, rings the hell with ease. It is a brilliant adaptation of a comedy (by .Herr Bruno Frank) which has 'its not very circumstantial roots in a small Scottish town. The obscurest of Balkie's inhabitants, a Mrs. Flanagan, owns a mongrel dog whose pedigree is a palimpsest that few would care to decipher ; and .when the .municipality duns her in respect of dog-licence fees she goes to the Provost about it. The Provost, preoccupied by political ambitions which arc just coining to a head, is pitiless and impolite. His reactions are witnessed by a quixotic young reporter, And the next day the local paper sets the hearts of its dog- 'loving public aflame with indignation. An angry crowd enfilades the Provost's sitting-room with salvoes of the humbler vegetables and the Provost's career is at an end. 'The reporter loses his job but wins, in the last act, an action which the Provost's spite has caused to be • brought- against ]rim. Since he' also wins the .Provost's wife, who has been deserted by that dignitary, and since-Mrs. Flanagan:is reunited to her mongrel, this cheerful play-has the happiest of endings. To say that Mrs. Flanagan is Miss Sara. Allgood is. to say that volubility and pathos could not have been presented better. The reporter, thanks to Mr. Roger Livesey's charm and humour, is much more than a juvenile lead with an unlikely notebook. Miss Ivy des Voeux gives point and -poise. to the heroine ; and the dog is supremely canine. Mr. 13ridie's work-al an adaptor is on a level with Mr. Emlyn Williams' in The Late Christopher-Bean.- .ppstit.FLE„ixo.
Previous page
