CONTEMPORARY ARTS
THE THEATRE
" Born Yesterday." By Garson Kanin. (Garrick.)
BILLIE DAWN was dumb, and liked it. But when Harry Brock, who thought he owned her, brought her to Washington, her lack of refine- ment threatened to sabotage the social contacts on which the success of his intrigues depended. So Harry hired Paul Verrall to instil into his mistress the elements of culture ; and this was a mistake, because Paul was a serious young man who contributed to the New Republic and could not have approved less of Harry, an unscrupulous, hectoring junk-magnate with scant regard for the law or the liberties of the individual. So it was hardly surprising that the doll's education equipped her with a set of democratic values in the light of which Harry's outlook on life and on his fellow-men became as repugnant to her as they were to Paul ; and in the end the two of them contrived to thwart the anti-social machinations of the tycoon and to preserve intact—though by methods almost as questionable as his—a number of the better-known American ideals.
There is a hint of the machinal about the structure of this play, as though it owed its origins more to the judicious quest for an effective theatrical formula than to any particular inspiration on the part of the dramatist. But its texture is almost always fresh and amusing, except when a synthetic brand of political morality is introduced in an attempt to dignify the outcome of an essentially squalid conflict. " The most luxurious suite in the most luxurious hotel in Washing- ton " attains, in Mr. Roger Furse's admirable set, a ghastly, neo- Byzantine splendour, and Mr. Hartley Power's portrait of. Harry Brock could ask for no more congruous background. Mr. Power's perform- ance is a fine one ; though we laugh a great deal at Harry there is something terrifying about this ape-like potentate, blindly bull-dozing his way towards yet more wealth and yet more power. No less excellent, and considerably more sympathetic, is Miss Yolande Donlan's study of the dainty, Runyonesque slut who causes all the trouble. " Every time," her protector complains, " she opens her kisser, sump'n terrible come out," and Billie's solecisms are a well- timed display of fireworks which were never intended for the drawing- room. Even Mr. Laurence Olivier's production (which is very good)
• cannot disguise the fact that the rest of the cast—as so often happens when English actors present an American play—hardly get the most out of their parts ; but this need not seriously mar anyone's enjoyment of an extremely entertaining evening. PETER FLEMING.
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