THE THEATRE.
COMEDY THEATRE.—" THE ROMANTIC AOE."—A. A. MILNE.
ASTER Alice had complained that his uncertainty made her feel giddy, the Cheshire Cat disappeared quite gradually, and his smile was the last thing to go. So it is with Mr. Milne. I did not see Mr. Pim Passes By, but I believe that it had, so to speak, a striped back, four paws and a tail, whereas the very ears and whiskers have almost disappeared in The Romantic Age. How- ever, the smile remains, and it is after all quite an amusing little play.
Mr. and Mrs. Knowle were quite ordinary people whose romantic daughter Melisande could not fall in love with the ordinary young men of to-day, but demanded something very choice in a slashed doublet. This creature was forthcoming in the person of a young man on the Stock Exchange who, first seen by moon- light on his way to a fancy dress dance, subsequently got lost and appeared again early on Midsummer's Day morning in the wood whither Melisande had also wandered clad in roost im- probable red satin shoes. Then he reappeared at tea in " plus four" knickerbockers. After a period of disillusionment, everything ends well.
Is not the play a " dug-out " ? Was it not written before the war and has it not been reposing in Mr. Milne's desk ever since ? Young ladies do not now go back to the Middle Ages for romance ; they go to the Flying Corps or the Tanks. Coal- black chargers and battle-axes are so obviously off, and thus the whole play, pretty though it is, seems a little wan and faded. Miss Lottie Venne and Mr. Bromley-Davenport were extra- ordinarily good as Melisande's parents, while Miss Barbara Hoff° has a voice so soft and agreeable that she made Melisande's absurdities attractive. The fancy dress hero, Mr. Arthur Wontner, was exceedingly competent.
Mr. Milne really ought to pull himself together ; if he can write dialogue so witty and charming, surely he could give us a better play than that?
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