CONTEMPORARY ARTS
THEATRE
C010Mbee" By Jean Anouilh. (New.) MANAGEMENTS cannot import M. Anouilh's plays fast enough, and that is all to the good ; in many respects he is ate most consistently brilliant dramatist writing today. But the chorus of praise invites 'discordant noises from robustly plain men who disapprove of his success here. A pessimist, a defeatist, another decadent Frenchman, too unhealthy by half for honest John Bull—they speak of him as though he were not so much an artist as some sort of preacher or philosopher. There has been, is, and will be much that is sad in the human condition, and Anouilh is not quite the first dramatist to find his obsession in the sadness. What chiefly distinguishes him in his generation is his power to transform his awareness of the black despair and bitterness of individual tragedy into terms of ironic comedy—" gaiety transfiguring all that dread." His pessimism is joyfully expressed, and since in the theatre it is the expression that matters, I am bound to • suggest that a gay pessimist who touches the heart and amuses is to be preferred to a pudding-faced optimist who provides only beds of artificial roses. Colombe is a girl who gives her husband more cause than Leontes to cry: " Inch-thick, knee-deep, o'er head and ears a fork'd one ! " She was a simple, sweet and innocent flower-girl when Julien, the too serious-minded son of a famous actress, married her. Now that he must do his military service he brings her to the theatre to ask his mother, who despises him, to look after her. The comedy of the contrast between Julien and Colombe is perfectly established by Michael Gough and Joyce Redman. Before the first act is over Colombe's thin innocence is beginning to peel off. She does not know it, but she is already a world away from Julien. Madame Alexandra, the red-headed empress of the stage (Paris, 1900), rapa- cious, flamboyant, a creature of artifice in everything except her appetites, gathers the girl into her dominion of hard work and relentless pleasure, and here Colombe suffers a change more extreme than that other flower-girl, Eliza. When Julien hurries back on short leave three months later, he finds his little wife case-hardened, her sweet mouth pouring out a torrent of stagey chatter and lies ; and she has lovers—perhaps Lagarde, a corseted hero of the boards ; or Desfournettes, the theatre director ; or Robinet, a dramatist ; perhaps all three • but beyond a doubt Paul, Julien's brother. In a powerful scene he admits it, with some shame. So does she,. but with none. An appeal to his formidable mother, the devourer of men, brings only harsh scorn on Julien's head. This is life, she says, but you will not face it ; you demand too much, and, disappointed, you whine. Anouilh, twisting the knife, follows the third act with an epilogue' (or transposed prologue), which shows the first sweet meeting of Julien and Colombe—a device of bitter_ irony which
ends the play on the right note. .
It is a time-honoured theme—the individual's ultimate isolation, on the realisation of which the human comedy is built. It is the theme which Anouilh is constantly exploring, and this is another masterly voyage of discovery. Peter Brook's production is deft and light and finely composed, but there is one major flaw—the casting of Yvonne Arnaud as Madame Alexandra, a character not quite within the stylistic range of this charming actress. The other parts are all well filled, with especially good-performances from Esme Percy, David Horne, Eliot Makeham, John Stratton and Laurence Naismith. Colonibe will plainly be more to the public's taste than the tragic farce ;Irak, but I doubt, whether it will be taken to the heart like Ring Round the MoOn ; for all the laughter and the enchanting settings there is more of le noir than le rose in this comedy. Denis Cannan did the adaptation. Imisr HAMILTON.
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