CONTEMPORARY ARTS
THEATRE
A Day by the Sea. By N. C. Hunter. (Hay- market.)—Someone Waiting. By Emlyn Williams. (Globe.)—Othello. By William Shakespeare. (Sloane School.)
"ENGLISH CHEKHOV " has been a good many people's. guess about N. C. Hunter's new play. His earlier work, Waters of the Moon, ran to the same pattern : talk, charming people, a pleasant trickle of con- versation wearing holes in their skulls. Here they are at it again. An old man (Lewis Casson) realises that he is going to die, a diplomat (John Gielgud) realises that he is a failure, his mother (Sybil Thorndike) realises that he realises that he is a failure. The diplomat's reaction is to try to 'marry a widow (Irene Worth) who once adored him, but thinks it is a bit late to start over again, and this is the most positive gesture allowed anyone in the play. Otherwise they talk— about life, about marriage, about politics, worst of all about themselves. And then when the widow won't marry the diplomat, when her nurse's bid to marry a drunken doctor (Ralph Richardson) has failed, when the old uncle is thoroughly convinced of his uselessness, the curtain falls to the accom- paniment of some thrilling plans for building a new water garden. Of course, it won't get built. We know that. Frustration and nostalgia are the predominant themes of this play, both of them highly undramatic emotions. And what is the moral ? Nosce teipsum, perhaps.
However, the cast's the thing. The play may be over-engined for its beam, but the eng nes are jets. Sir John Gielgud gives u; a tormented official with flashes of perception set against a background of intelligent obtuseness. It is a pleasure to see how the contrasting elements are weighed against each other in every gesture, every intonation of the voice. This is &consciously intellectual performance, and it comes off superbly. Sir Ralph Richardson is too Falstaffian as the doctor, but has at least one very touching moment, and Sir Lewis Casson extracts all the gentle bitterness of old age. Dame Sybil Thorndike is quite uncannily every- body's mother : if anything keeps the house from falling down, it is she. Miss Irene Worth plays the return of the prodigal with great calm. The direction and sets are impeccable. A pleasant day by the sea, but how we long for something to shatter the magical, despairing charm. A murder, for instance.
In Emlyn Williams's melodrama this kind of self-help is quite frequent. John Nedlow, a city tycoon, used to helping himself, has done a murder, but a young man has been hanged for it. The young man's father, played by Mr. Williams in person, decides to avenge his son, gets taken on by Nedlow as a tutor for his adopted son Martin and, with Martin's help, plans Nedlow's murder. A pity it involves killing a third party, but it can't be helped. Life is like that. At least, chess is like that. And if life isn't like chess? Why, the unexpected will happen, and the perfect murder will go off the rails as perfect murders have a way of doing. Too bad, but Fenn and Martin should have read more thrillers. By the third act they are tied in knots from which I should have thought there was no extricating them. Mr. Williams had me guessing all the way. This is a fine melodrama, and its author steals the acting honours as well with- his portrait of a little man going quietly crazy. Campbell Cotts., however, gives him a worthy opponent in the tycoon. Mr. Cotts plays the part with its correct Lord Mayor's banquet flavour, while managing to convey that he is just a great, big, murderous boy at heart. He had me applauding every move in Mr. Williams's compl,cated demonstration of murder as a fine art.
The Sloane School's productions of Shakespeare are well known, and this one seemed quite up to standard. The producer (Guy Boas) was lucky in having I. M. Fraser and J. H. Binfleld to play Iago and Othello. They managed very well, and the temptation scenes went with a villainous swing. The set was simple and effective, the production had the virtue of pace—generally to seek in amateur shows. It is cheering to think that a school can put on a Shakespearean production of this quality.
ANTHONY HARTLEY
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