THEATRE
A Darlin' Paycock
Juno and the Paycock. (Old Vic.)—The Wedding; Crime and Punishment: The Columbus Boys. (Polish Popular Theatre at the Aldwych.)— A Friend Indeed. (Cambridge.) ViUTR‘GEOUS claims have been made for Juno and the Paycock—not least by Yeats who told Lady Gregory that the play reminded him of a Dostoievsky novel. 'You know, Willie,' she said, 'you never read a novel by Dostoievsky.'
Her caution is printed early in the National Theatre programme and one can see why. No nonsense for Olivier about the sacred travail of womanhood, Ireland's cavalry, her answer to the Greeks, the tragic masterpiece of the century, etc.; and none of the stifling piety which made the Abbey Theatre's Juno, in London two years ago, so woefully boring. His production firmly charts the rise and fall of a great comic hero, according to the strictest classic pattern. Colin Blakely in Act One is a shackled, shifty Boyle—stalking his breakfast with ears pinned back for sands of Juno on the staircase, humming to himself like Pooh, assuming a defensive grumble the moment she appears, but mechanically and with- out real rancour. News of his inheritance comes as no surprise—beyond his wildest dreams per- haps, but to such a practised dreamer it is no trouble to adjust them. The full glory of his transformation emerges in Act Two when, encased in tweeds and watch-chain, he sets him- self to perform the novel rites of capitalist and genial paterfamilias. Chaffing Joxer from a great height, gently rebuking Juno, chatting man- to-man with puzzled Mr Bentham about consols and the yogi in the streets of San Francisco— everything he does is weird and grand, in keeping with the solemnity of his elevation to the bourgeoisie. Tetchiness has vanished in a radiant benevolence. He rocks on his heels, crooks his little finger, subdues his natural bellow to strangled hiccups of pleasure after the recital of his party piece. He is genteel to a point beyond absurdity—a man reverently living a myth.
His exposure in Act Three—heralded by a long pause, a characteristic Olivier mood- change, when the empty stage is filled by the heavy sounds of Mr Blakely breathing and the occasional gurgle of stout—comes as the inexor- able turning of the comic mills. Needle Nugent's image of the Captain toiling daily up his solici- tors' stairs, 'and they black in the face telling him he'd get nothing,' had its seeds already in the visionary structure we have watched him build.
A gargantuan performance: Frank Finlay's Joxer twines around it, waning as the Captain waxes, waxing as he wanes, for this Joxer is a parasite nourished on the substance of his host. Or rather a familiar, a sinister, gaunt, grey emana- tion of slum poverty itself, vanishing with a backflip through the window (the hint of a crash landing on corrugated iron would not come amiss here), slipping in through a crack in the door, routed out by Juno in a rat-like stutter for the stairs. Spry enough in Act One, his energy drains away in Act Two as the Captain climbs beyond his reach—the humiliation inflicted by his erst- while victim when Joxer fluffs the lines of his party piece is a grisly thing—and ebbs back with the Captain's downfall. At the end, in their reeling drunken dance, Joxer's ascendancy is established in a grip firmer and more deadly than before. No need to stress the traces of Mr Finlay's Iago in this interpretation, which is one of the very best things he has done.
It is left for Juno to speak with the still, small voice of reason, the praCtical mentor—Malvolio's mistress, Alceste's Philinte, always to be found in the wake of great comic heroes, dwarfed by their bulk and powerless to intervene. Joyce Redman plays her with extraordinary sympathy: slight, resolute, yielding not an inch to Joxer's depradations, setting her face indomitably against the blank wall of her husband's fantasies. Madge Ryan's Maisie Madigan is a delight. Caroline John and Peter Cellier, as Mary and Bentham, seem rather on the shadowy side, prosecuting their love affair with no great conviction as yet. In the general process of clearing out the sobstuff and the melodrama, Ronald Pickup's Johnny seems to have been overlooked : an intense, in- ward-looking portrait of a neurotic, excellent in its way but a trifle out of place in this production. He might with advantage have been permitted a flicker of interest in the proceedings, at some point before the Irregulars finally come for him. Olivier has chosen to locate the emotional climax here, rather than with the news of Johnny's death and Juno's lament. In the event, the arrival of the removal men—to strip away the sofa and the chimney-runner, last physical vestiges of the Captain's glory—is more harrowing than either.
This production may not be the last word on Juno; no doubt there is still room for a great
tragic actress to elbow Mr Blakely out, and rein- state the heroine at the centre. But meanwhile, Olivier has scarcely exaggerated O'Casey's own deflationary wit, and supplied a corrective in the nick of time to all the woolly thinking which looked like turning the paycock into a white elephant.
The Polish Popular Theatre was here and made its mark, but a distinctly cryptic mark. Their pro- gramme—two rambling novel adaptations and a peasanty free-for-all—suffered from overcrowd- ing (casts in the thirties) and muddling story lines; and their preoccupation with the nuances of Polish political thought made no concessions to outsiders. An admirable company no doubt, but not seen to best advantage. William Douglas Home's A Friend Indeed I thoroughly recom- mend, and not only to playgoers still living in that dwindling world where only a sneak would get hold of another man's wife, and a youthful suitor may still be required to swear he hasn't 'done the girl wrong.' For a larger section of the public this piece will have a pleasing period patina, well served by the featness of the acting, David Tomlinson's in particular, and the excellent frugality of the construction.
HILARY SPURLING
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