THE TllEAT itE
GRAND GUIGNOL (FOURTH SERTF1S) AT THE LITTLE THEATRE.
COMPLAINTS have been loud against Mr. Jose Levy for swallowing up into his show (which is not, the virtuous protest, serious art at all) two of the best actresses in London, besides the admirable Miss Barbara Gott, Mr. Russell Thorndike, Mr. Lewis Casson, and Mr. Bealby. They say that Mr. Levy is not content with being "a thrill hog," but is also "a talent hog," and has much too good a cast. These reproaches, it seems to me, should be levelled against the other London managers. Miss Athene Seyler has not been acting for some time, and is it not possible that this was because nobody offered her a reasonable engagement ? After all, both in the case of Miss Thorndike and Miss Seyler, Mr. Levy has offered them the best parts he had got. The audience will probably continue to wish for rather better opportunities for all these players, but let them take heart of grace and remember that their complaint is not that the Little Theatre programme is too well acted, but that many serious plays are not acted well enough. In the millennium all plays will be as well acted as Mr. Jose Levy's productions.
The first play, Latitude 150 S., is of the school of Mr. Conrad. We have the small company of men shirt up together, the lame ship, the threatening elements, material of which Mr. Conrad has repeatedly made such wonderful use. Mr. MacClure has not given us quite the Comadian subtlety, but this is to some extent part and parcel of the Conradian discursiveness, which would be impossible on the stage. The little play possesses
atmosphere, and the uneasiness of the ship's situation is well conveyed.
The Vigil, a story which in a very different way treats of the same motif as Mary Rose—i.e., the advantages of "hic jacet" as against " reaurgam "—is remarkable chiefly for the extra- ordinarily good acting of Miss Barbara Gott as a fat, coarse French servant. The author has conveyed this character with great success, and Miss Barbara Gott has given it an almost startling life.
In Mr. Crawshay-Williams's comedy, Rounding the Triangle, Miss Athene Seyler plays to perfection the part of a simple, emotional, tawdry, and sympathetic demi-mondaine. Her power of being slightly frowsy, slightly overdressed without being repellent, the marvellous commonness of movement and intonation that she can achieve, are astounding when we rereem- ber the refinement, tenderness, and humour of her Rosalind, Miss Thorndike's performance in this play makes one long to see her act Shaw.
But it is over the fourth play, The Old Women, that contra. versy has chiefly raged. The scene is a lunatic asylum kept by nuns. The nuns are inclined to put their religious before their secular duties, and have a habit of praying in the chapel and leaving none of the community to watch the lunatics at night. This has given opportunity for two old women, La Normande and La Bossue (both these parts are played to admiration by Miss Barbara Gott, and Miss Athene Seyler), to torment a young girl who is nearly cured. The mind of each of these two poor creatures has been affected through the shock of losing daughters, and now they hate everything young, and the idea that Louise must not go out of the asylum alive takes possession of them. In an admirable scene, Miss Sybil Thomdike, the girl, explains to the doctor on his round her terror of the two women -who sleep in the dormitory with her. He thinks that her fear is a return of her persecution mania, but promises that her bed shall be moved and that for this last night one of the sisters shall watch with her. But that evening a midnight mass is to be said over the coffin of one of the Order who has just died. The nun believes "that the dead need us more than the living," and against the order of the doctor leaves her patients to join in the prayers over the coffin of the dead nun. The lights go out, and from the chapel comes the music of the solemn requiem; The expected happens, and the two horrible old women, helped by a creature from the next room whom every one believed para- lysed, put out the eyes of the wretched Louise. The whole of the first act of this play is admirable. Miss Cicely Oates as a lay-attendant in the ward evokes the sense of fear with great skill, and Miss Sybil Thorndike's excited outpourings to the doctor have a true note of tragedy. She makes the audience know that Louise feels herself foredoomed. But either they toned down the finish of the last act, which made such a pother, or dramatic critics are for the most part very easily scared and by very odd things. Its emotional effect cannot be mentioned in the same breath, for instance, with the last act of Othello. Per- sonally, I was made to feel far more uncomfortable by the scene in the last little play, Shepherd's Pie, when unaccountable delay in the serving of the dinner agonizes a nervous hostess "on her promotion." This last play was, I thought, the least good of the five. It is a comedy of a crude sort, and not, to my mind, a
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