CONTEMPORARY ARTS
THEATRE
Waters of the Moon." By N. C. Hunter. (Haymarket.) " How can we know the dancer from the dance ? " Or the dance from the dancer ? How can we know this play apart from the performances of Dame Sybil Thorndike, Dame Edith Evans, Miss Wendy Hiller, Miss Kathleen Harrison, Mr. Harold Scott, Mr. Cyril Raymond, and the others of an excellent company ? In one sense Mr. Hunter is unfortunate in having his text struck quite so magnificently into life, at such lavish expense of talent all round ; for the circumstances inevitably create the tendency to wag a finger and remind the author •that he has not quite produced another Cherry Orchard, that if it were not for Tennent Productions, Mr. Frith Banbury, the Dames, and the rest, his water; of the moon would be small beer indeed. Lucky Mr. Hunkr, but poor Mr. Hunter too. Is he to receive no praise at all, no credit for the success ? Since actors must have something to act, let us be reasonable as well as charitable and grant that the matter Mr. Hunter provides is not altogether unworthy of the greatly talented company which makes good use of it. Not a great play, certainly ; but not a bad play, either ; and if there are few lines that live in the memory, there is about the whole, for all its faults, a fidelity to humanity's sad music. A play of mood and atmosphere, elegiac in spirit and intent, saying nothing new but expressing old melan- choly not without grace and delicacy.
A guest-house on the edge of Dartmoor is run by a woman who has known easier days ; she is helped by her daughter, whose lover was killed in the war, and by her son, an invalid dreaming of far exploration. In the lounge an old colonel dozes, a refugee recalls his Austria, an elderly woman dwells constantly on her altered circumstances and cherishes her resentment of the cockney Mrs. Ashworth and her ceaseless chatter. This, then, is the circumscribed world, its dusty atmosphere rank with self-pity, frustration and bitterness, a tedium uneasily enduring—until a blizzard sends the passing Lancasters to the guest-house for shelter. They are from another world, where wealth permits the gratification of most desires. Dame Edith, as Mrs. Lancaster, enters like a shower of diamonds, quickening the morbid ear with her glitter, communi- cating the virtue not of her gross wealth but of her uncontrollable joy even to those most angered by the intrusion. She speaks in tones of exultation like an artist inspired, careless of the effect upon others who might confuse art and life, rousing dangerous hopes yet offering no common solution to the unhappiness which, she declares, is the only sin. As Dame Edith is dazzling in this, so is Dame Sybil equally to be praised for her portrayal of the elderly woman still learning to master disappointment. They are the poles between which the action is contained—the sad and hopeless little passage of sentiment between the son of the house (Mr. Owen Holder) and the rich girl (Miss Patricia McCarron). the desperate infatuation of the Austrian (Mr. Leo Bieber) with Mrs. Lancaster, the torments of self-pity long endured and then embarrassingly manifested by the hotel-keeper's daughter, most touchingly played by Miss Wendy Hiller. And one day the snow clears, the Rolls- Royce is pulled from the ditch, the sparkling intruders go, leaving behind them a sharp tang of disillusion, a thirst that is not to be quenched. That is all.
Slacknesses, some speeches oddly out of character, not a little padding—there are faults, indeed, but these for the most part fade at the time behind Mr. Banbury's sensitive production and the enchantment of the playing. Nothing great as a play, surely, but on the stage a nice marriage of matter and manner.
LAIN HAMILTON.
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