The Teddy Bear. By James Warren. (St. Martin's.) THE first
point is the play's essential pointlessness. A murder has been done, and in the first act the identity of the murderer is made known to the audience. We then sit back and expect, rightly, some development in depth. This is not forthcoming. The killer, played by Roger Livesey in a manner which might have been suggested by the title, has pushed a refugee from Austria over a cliff near Brighton and taken her two neglected children to his bosom in his bungalow, much to the dismay of his boozy old ma (who is given the most dangerous gusto by Olga Lindo). Why should her Charlie boy, who should be a big name on the halls, rusticate in poverty at Seaview, turning a deaf ear to the duns, amusing himself by running the local theatricals and being kind to children ?
Charlie's affection for the waifs is genuine, and this proves his undoing in the end, for the little girl accidentally stumbles on the final clue and obstinately holds on to it. After a grotesque scene in which Charlie, heaving and hissing about the darkened stage like Leviathan stranded, makes an attempt to gas the children and is then defeated by conscience, the play comes to an end with the words " It is a far better thing, etc." trembling on the verge of utterance.
It is a shallow little pool of a play, and Roger Livesey is too big a fish for it. That is much more striking than any implausibilities in the plot or flatnesses in the writing. Tadpoles can live in saucers and sticklebacks in jamjars, but Mr. Livesey needs a bigger vessel. Somebody's sense of proportion has. been defective.
IA IN HAMILTON.
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