CONTEMPORARY ARTS
THEATRE
Magnolia Street Story. By Louis Golding and Emanuel Litvinoff.
WHEN Jewish actors gather in any strength on the same stage, they have a way of turning into "stage Jews." The same, you may have noticed, is true of Irish actors ; an element of music-hall obtrudes, and verisimilitude founders. NOw there are no actors like the Jews for conjuring up the flavour and atmosphere of a family, the tragi-comedy of kitchen and front parlour, but their style in pure tragedy or pure farce grows easily florid and self- indulgent, cloying the palate as surely as a pint of Ktimmel. In Magnolia Street Story, Mt. Emanuel Litvinoff's adaptation of Mr. Louis Golding's story about anti-Semitism during the 1914-18 war In a Manchester shun, some of the best Jewish actors in London are assembled, and in the first half, before the tragedy begins, I was much amused and moved. But later, when the war had con- sumed Mr. Emanuel's son, and Mrs. Ginsberg had died of grief, and Alec had turned deserter and his wife a whore, the monotonous billows of keening began to wash over my head, swamping a situation which, being melodramatic, resolutely refused to float. Mr. Martin Miller, a sombre, staring little actor whose honking voice had sounded so impressive in earlier scenes, hereabouts decided to pepper his script with a series of pedantic interlinear glosses, most of them full-stops.
In the first half, none the less, there is some beautifully fluent and expressive playing. Miss Lilly Kann, who resembles a harvest moon, deploys her bulk with mother-of-pearl delicacy, distributing out of her largesse such gentle pleasures as that of hearing her say: "Don't shush me. I'm not a pussycat." Mr. Alfie Bass has himself what is known as "a ball" with the part of a grubby marriage broker, and adopts for its purposes the slouch of a circus chimpanzee, perpetually wincing at some invisible disaster.' Miss June Brown, as a girl torn between Jewish and Gentile lovers, plays with great purity of style, and an almost complete avoidance of fidgetings and shrillness. What is more, she looks the period. Straight and tall, with distressed eyes and a wispy halo of dark hair, she might have stepped straight out of a middle-class genre painting. The director, Mr. Terence de Marney, handles a large east and a revolving stage without noticeable collisions, but there are more styles of Jewish acting than I think he imagines, and not all of them are reconcilable in the same entertainment.
KENNETH TYNAN.
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