CONTEMPORARY ARTS
THE THEATRE
Lute Song. By Sidney Howard and Will Irwin. (Winter Garden.)
THE programme does not state either where or when (or for that matter why) the action of this musical play takes place ; nor does it give us more than the basis for a bold but disinterested conjecture as to which of its nineteen scenes we are supposed to be witnessing at any given moment. It contains, however, sufficient internal evidence to warn us, before the curtain rises, that the setting is Chinese ; and after it has risen we have no difficulty in identifying the period as belonging to the Ham Dynasty, whose contribution to Occidental histrionics has been so outstanding that it is high time someone wrote in a part for it in Oriental history.
The pattern—the willow-pattern, you might say—of human behaviour in this version of Old Cathay holds few surprises for the seasoned theatre-goer. Every sentence attempts a feat of etymological haute ecole, but without, alas! achieving the felicity in this medium of Mr. Ernest Bramah. Fans snap, gongs boom, the Imperial will once more seeks unavailingly to override the biddings of the human heart, and once more we find ourselves wondering at a minor theatrical mystery. Why is it that if supers are required to portray Vikings or Zulus or the Pretorian Guard they are invariably very small men, whereas if they are cast as Chinese they all seem to be about six feet tall, with large, aquiline noses ?
The curious thing about the flummery at the Winter Garden is that it is not nearly as bad as you think it is going to be. The symmetrical pageantry is managed with great conviction, the pinch- beck rotundities are delivered with lapidary firmness, the orchestra leaps into every breach before we are aware of it, and the result is a reasonably persuasive evening's entertainment. Mr. Yul Brynner and Miss Dolly Haas are the hero and heroine, and on the whole they manage very well. One comes away reflecting that the piece might have been written at almost any time during the last fifty years ; but its air of timelessness -will hardly, I am afraid, prevent
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