CONTEMPORARY ARTS
THEATRE
"Indian Summer." By Peter Watling. . (Criterion.) THERE is a certain emptiness about this play. We are aware of dexterity, and sometimes of perception, but the characters, though drawn with assurance, remain obstinately uninteresting. Sam Hartley, the central figure, is a failure both in his married life and in his profession. He works for a film company as a sort of script-scout, going to first nights and reporting on the cinematic possibilities of plays. Irked by the knowledge that he is worthy of better things, he treats both his wife and his employers with scant consideration. His downfall comes when, in order to escort his pretty sister-in-law to a party (given, to make things worse, by a Venezuelan lady), he leaves a dull play without waiting to see the last act, thereby missing a major (and in my experience rather unusual) theatrical event. This causes him to decide to rejoin the army, in which he served with great distinction during the war (in Burma, I need hardly say. In the theatre it is almost axiomatic that all maladjusted ex-soldiers fought in Burma), and, although he turns out ,to be too old for the infantry, and consequently gets drunk, we are meant, I think, to deduce from the final curtain that he re-embarks upon a military career.
Sam, though likeable, is shallow and ill-mannered and really rather a tiresome man ; he is played, oh a becoming note of apology, by Mr. Robert Flemyng. Miss Jane Baxter acts very loyally and skilfully the unrewarding part of his understanding wife, and Miss Betty Ann Davies is good as her frivolous sister. Their mother, who mourns querulously for Quetta and deplores—far too frequently —the rigours of the Welfare State, is played vigorously by Miss Margaret Halstan, and Miss Nora Nicholson draws with touching precision a sketch of a mouse-like old spinster. But the performance I liked best was Mr. Clive Morton's ; his part—that of a staunch, stupid regular soldier—was not very subtly conceived, but it was when he was on the stage that this promising but disappointing play
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