A‘ There Shall Be No Night." At the Aldwych - . THE
THEATRE
Snot accomplished actors as Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne can count on receiving the warmest possible welcome for their only too rare appearances on the English stage, and this welcome is all the
greater when they bring with them a new play by one of America's foremost dramatists, Robert E. Sherwood. There Shall Be No Night, written in 1940, is by the author of The Petrified Forest, Reunion in Vienna and Idiot's Delight, and has the incidental merit of being written before America's entry into the present war, since its theme
is the affirmative answer to the ever-recurring question, " Am I my brother's keeper? " and is an eloquent and moving exposition of the Anti-Isolationist party's attitude in the United States. - It is, therefore, addressed primarily to an American audience and is a clever and effective, because serious and human, dramatisation of the practical problem which faced every citizen of the United States after the outbreak of war in 1939, namely, how far does this war concern me?
The chief character in Mr. Sherwood's play is a famous Greek doctor, a Nobel prize-winner, married to an American-born wife; like so many pre-war intellectuals, he is a pacifist because he over- estimates reason as a prime factor ip human life. It is perhaps natural that intellectuals should fall into the error of supposing reason to be the motive power instead of perceiving that it is only a directive power in men and women, like the steering-wheel of a motor-car, and that the propulsive force, the petrol, which makes the machine move is not reason but that informed and imaginative passion for which no better word than love has ever been conceived. Dr. \nachos is therefore astonished when his son reveals himself as a patriot, and expresses his determination to fight when Greece is attacked by the Italians and Nazis, and in his abstract aloofness from real life thinks to dissuade his son by pointing out the Greeks' hopeless disparity in armed strength compared with their opponents. The death of his son in the war, the patriotism of his bereaved daughter-in-law, the refusal of his American-born wife to abandon her husband and seek refuge in the United States, and the presence of the enemy all combine to dislodge him from his Ivory Tower, and he joins the Greek Red Cross and at a crisis removes his Red Cross armlet (quotes Pericles famous speech to the Athenians) and becomes a combatant. Mr. Sherwood has written a play whose passionate sincerity cverrides all pitfalls, although he does not show the poetic eloquence which alone could have made it more than a moving tract for the times.
The acting is excellent throughout, although I considerlibat both Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne are at their best in comedy rather than in %traight drama. Mr. Lunt is more adroit than convincing in his expreSsion of emotion while Miss Fontanne has a part that does not call for more than the telling reticence and meiosis of which she is such a fine exponent. Terry Morgan as the son and
Muriel Pavlow as the daughter-in-law were as good as one could wish, and a word of praise must be given to Frederick Lloyd. as Uncle Leonidas and to Gerard Kempinski for a most convincing
performance as the German, Dr. Ziemessen. JAMES REDFERN.
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