CONTEMPORARY ARTS
THE THEATRE
Private Enterprise." By St. John Ervine. (St. James's).
This is a play about the liberty of the individual, a theme tackled only incidentally by Shakespeare. It could have been a good play, but is not. There are two main reasons for this, one technical and one moral. The technical reason is a lack of concentration. The theme of Private Enterprise is implicit in its title : St. George, re- cumbent but game, is conducting a forlorn hope against the Dragon of Socialism, trades-unionism and the seamy pistonnage of the underdog turned overlord. It is an important theme, and Mr. Ervine's frankly (and why not ?) partisan approach to it shirks few if any of the issues. But he brings in so many other issues too— some wider, like conscientious objectors and family loyalties, and some less wide, like women wearing trousers—that, although this catholicity does him credit both as a man and as a commentator on his fellow men, the force of his attack on his main objective is dissi- pated. The Delawares want to run their factory in their own way and they take their stand on the right of one of their oldest hands to stay outside the union. The clash of personalities and principles is inherently dramatic, but one of the reasons why it fails to grip us is because Mr. Ervine conducts too many feints and skirmishes which have little or nothing to do with the main battle. For instance, the plot is materially assisted by making a ne'er-do-weel Delaware become a Labour M.P. ; but to give him a V.C. and to make him marry an implausibly asinine girl for her money is the opposite of helpful because it is distracting.
The second reason why this play does not come off is because it does not manage to give an impression of fairness. By fairness I do not mean the watery virtue of impartiality ; the world would get nowhere if writers did not take sides. Nor do I mean that Mr. Ervine, who backs the Right, does not give the Left a chance of stating its case. But at the St. James's you get—at least I got—the feeling that the dramatist's dice were a bit too heavily loaded, so that what he had to say, while it remained perfectly good polemics, made only mediocre drama.
The acting is good. Mr. Nicholas Hannen and Mr. Andre Morell wear their hearts of oak upon their sleeves with an air of Gals- worthian conviction, Miss Elizabeth Allan is decorative and.detached, and Mr. William Fox gives the right cynical assurance to the heroic cad. The lower orders with the upper hand are extremely well represented by Messrs. Julien Mitchell and Russell Waters and the Misses Eileen Peel and Elizabeth Gray do well in thankless parts.
PETER FLEMING.
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