CONTEMPORARY ARTS
THE THEATRE
" Outrageous Fortune." By Ben Travers. (Winter Garden.)— "Richard II." By William Shakespeare. (New).
THIS is a farce not to end farces, but to continue them. Mr. Travers' unmatched skill and experience reassert at the Winter Garden the honoured traditions of the Aldwych, with Messrs. Ralph Lynn and Robertson Hare as the popular and energetic standard-bearers. The result, if it cannot be hailed as a tour de force, is emphatically a step in the right direction, for the Aldwych School, though it lacked a tie and—often—even more essential garments as well, made to the gaiety of London a contribution which was handsome, consistent and none the worse for being stereotyped.
Outrageous Fortune can be compared to the contemporary sausage. We are delighted that it still exists at all, we count ourselves lucky that it has come our way, we enjoy it very much. But though it is the same shape, size and colour as of yore, though it is cooked in the same manner and intended to fulfil the same inner need, there is that about its ingredients which engenders wistfulness. At their best, Mr. Ralph Lynn and Mr. Robertson Hare are as funny as they ever were ; and so, at his best, is Mr. Travers. But about the other players, though they do very well, there is a certain flavour of breadcrumbs, and as the old situations recur we cannot help sighing for the old favourites who used to be embroiled in them— for Mr. Drayton, Miss Brough and Miss Shotter ; their successors keep the torch burning, but with a rather pawky lustre.
Still, it is all great fun. Any attempt to describe the plot would hardly be justified with paper as scarce as it is today, and all that really needs to be said is that Messrs. Travers, Lynn and Hare are back at the old stand ; and very welcome, too.
The Old Vic Company's performance of Richard II was warmly commended in, these columns last May, and its virtues—chief among which is Mr. Alec Guiness's essentially aristocratic portrait of the King—shine as brightly in the winter as they did in the spring. There have been various changes in the cast. Mr. Mark Dignam takes over John of Gaunt from Sir RalphRichardson, and plays the part with force and majesty ; Mr. George Relph, like Mr. Nicholas Hannen before him, but using, perhaps, rather subtler means, dis- covers in the havering yet pontifical Duke of York a deep vein of tragi-comedy ; and Miss Renee Asherson inherits from Miss Margaret Leighton a queen whom she invests with pathos and with beauty. Mr. Harry Andrews is once more a splendid Bolingbroke, and over them all towers Mr. Guiness's Richard, fighting, in the sense of king- ship, a reargard action against the flaws in his character : a beautiful performance.
Only one thing has been lost, and that was the opportunity to revise a production which remains gauche and artificial. Topless pergolas, like blue-prints for a gas-works by Emmet, still dominate the stage and embarrass the players. Richard still has to ascend by a skeleton staircase into a sort of crows' nest, which is so far from being functional that it sways alarmingly with his every utterance ; and a door in the middle of the stage, besides leading nowhere, is still so low that actors using it have the air of taking part in an obstacle race. I think it is a pity that Sir Ralph Richardson did not modify a stylised but pointless setting which handicaps the
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