The Theatre
AT Christmas time, which comes but once a year," though it always seems to be here or near, our theatres must be tolerantly judged by the standard of mere entertainment.
At other seasons some of us try to pretend that we look for higher things. But it has to be admitted that, this autumn, entertainments have predominated ; therefore you may say that the theatres have been getting more and more Christ- massy for weeks past ; as indeed, every year, the merrie Yuletide season seems to swell and swell, bulging plethorically over the neighbouring months. Besides, plays not demons- trably produced with an eye on youthful holiday audiences can be turned into Christmas entertainments merely by advertising them as such, when the appropriate season comes. Is it not so in many enterprising shops ? Wrist-watches, ties, shoes, hats, and even the dullest articles of domestic use, can , be made Christmassy next week merely by a garniture of irrelevant ribbons, or by wreaths of ill-associated holly.
Thus you find that the Christmas plays this season are, by it majority, ordinary plays that will do, if garlanded, for phristmas. That is to say, they are mainly crook or " adven- :ture " plays which have overwhelmed the stage in 1927, and 'which are, one supposes, infinitely preferred by youth of the school age to any other form of merriment. For babes, of course, there are a few familiarly childish annuals—the ever- lasting Peter Pan, at the Gaiety, with Miss Jean Forbes- Robertson as a new Peter ; Where the Rainbow Ends (once pore) at the Holborn matinees ; matinees of Alice in Wonder- 'land at the Savoy ; a pantomime at the Garrick, Robinson frusoe (matinees only) ; The Queen of Hearts, twice daily, at 'the Lyceum ; as well as hoary revivals, such as The Private
ecretary (Playhouse). Parents hardly need reminding that these things will be with us as surely as plum pudding.
Having done their duty to the few children who are childish, the managers, as I said, have their crook plays—a liberal choice ! linw many exactly I dare not say, for they spring up
in the night, numberless. I can count at least seven. Dracula (Garrick Theatre) and The Terror must already have been seen by a good many lovers of the thrill ; but there will be others, always growing up to be thrilled ; and all have, for novelty, the blood-and-thunder piracies of Dr. Syn at the Strand, the railway horrors (very noisy) of The Wrecker (New Theatre), Crime (New York brand) at the Queen's, and, at the Royalty, The Crooked Billet—terrifyingly, confusingly crookish, with a throat-cutting scene against which I warn nervous parents. Probably children will not mind it. Taking an infant (female) to Peter Pan one year. I felt nervous about the possible effect upon her of the ghastly shimmering face of the pirate in one scene. She viewed it in perfect nonchalance, then remarked : " I rather like that man ! " Let us hope that they will all deign " rather " to enjoy these assassins and pistol shots. The tender age, La Fontaine says, lacks pity. With The Silent House (Comedy) remarkable for another brilliant per- formance by Mr. Franklin Dyall, and Interference, which I consider neither better nor worse than a crook play, still running at the St. James's, we have almost a complete map of the theatres, except the musical plays and the farces, of which perhaps Good Morning, Bill ! (Duke of York's), with Mr. Trues, is the brightest and best.
Serious plays (other than the melodramatic) always tend to disappear in a prevailingly " festive atmosphere ; but one at least is left, and will, I imagine, last for a good many weeks to come. The hundredth performance a few days ago of The Silver Cord reminded me that I have not yet found an oppor- tunity of describing Mr. Sidney Howard's remarkable study of the motherly egoist, for whom the existence of her two ordinary, or rather more than ordinarily stupid, sons is but a prolonga- tion of her own.
This Mrs. Phelps is a complete portrait of a type possibly commoner in the United States and in France than here, where for the moment sons and daughters appear to be well able to defend themselves against the mother-love so fondly idealized by most male dramatists, with Sir James Barrie at their head, For Mrs. Phelps, her boys' inevitable absences, inattentions their normal alien affections, their incipient ambitions and slight rebellions against her control are a betrayal of her sacri- fices for them ; almost an insult to her lavished care. Miss Lilian Braithwaite helps to build up the character by many delicate indications. The originality of the part and the beauty of her performance consist in the " little mousey," exquisitely youthful subtlety of Mrs. Phelps's attack. Her dear " great " boys can be excused for not recognizing the matriarchal despotism. It is exercised, with such softly clutching fingers—" all for love ! " But Hester and Christina, the two women who invade Mrs. Phelps's bliss—Hester engaged to one boy, Christina married to the other—they feel the force of that will behind the half-conscious pose of feminine helpless.. ness in Mrs. Phelps. She will attract them, pretend to make friends with them, fondle them ; then almost savagely under- mine their rival hold. With Hester she succeeds ; and very touching in its sincerity of hysterical protest is the playing, by Miss Marjorie Mars, of the scene where, under mousey mamma's suggestion, sheepish son number two gives the reasonably proud girl her dismissal. Miss Mars is a discovery and should go far. Christina is more formidable. Miss Clare Eames makes her an admirably quiet contrast to the mother, who, with sweet apparent guilelessness, chatters her way into the battle ; while Christina, the " strong-minded," reserved young wife, watches her, listens to her, and learns in listening what Mrs. Phelps is and what she wants ; then, at last, with none of poor Hester's hysteria, denounces her, leaves her, and by sheer determination detaches the unfortunate son number one— how one sympathizes with him !—leaving his feebler brother in the trap. Only one scene—that in the second act where the self-controlled and outwardly cold Christina paws and worries the already perplexed David Phelps—seemed to me over- written, in too conventionally passionate a style. Christina, Miss Eames made us feel, could have managed David with a less directly sentimental appeal. But perhaps even she lost her head in that very argumentative night ! Anyhow, in spite of a just noticeable fault of occasional exaggeration, and some needless repetition of " points," Mr. Howard's is surely the best, or the only good serious play now running in London.
RICIIARD JENNINGS.
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