"The Ivory Tower." By William Templeton. (Vaudeville.)
WE know that things like this happen, but we know with an almost greater certitude that they do not happen like this, and it is to be feared that Jan Masaryk, on whose tragedy The Ivory Tower is based, would have found its earnest,,literal-minded reconstruction of his dilemma too much for his admirable sense of humour. Jan Daubek, who faces this dilemma on the stage, is—despite the excellent acting of Mr. Francis Lister—a flat, conventional figure, and the people who surround him are, if possible, even flatter. The play demonstrates, with-the painstaking precision of a diagram, what can happen to a Central European statesman who compromises with Communism in what he believes to be the interests of his country. We see the treachery, the perversion of honourable standards, the extinction of liberties which automatically supervene ; we see—inevitably—the chivalrous American journalist who will tell the world about it ; we see the whole box of tricks. But upon the stage they are no more than tricks, played conscientiously in a predestined order. They do not move us, or surprise us, or excite us ; and the dramatist's only lapse. into something like originality produces a villain whose blend of affability and venom, though very well done by Mr. Michael Shipley, is a stock gambit of melo- drama. The production, for which Mr. Michael Macowan is responsible, moves at a funeral pace. It is sad to have-to speak so discouragingly of a play whose theme is so far from trivial ; but it is no use pretending that it is a good play. PETER FLEMING.
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