THE THEATRE TERENCE RarrmAN, th° author of Flare Path and
other successful theatrical pieces, has nothing of any moment to say, but a sense of the theatre and a light touch enable him in his latest comedy, While The Sun Shines, to amuse his audience successfully through two acts, but the fun wears a little thin in the last act. It is a war play about soldiers on leave in London, two of whom—an American and a Frenchman—are given shelter after a party by Lord Harpenden in his chambers in the Albany. The English peer is a conventional figure of West End comedy, a sort of more intelligent end sensible Bertie Wooster, played with a graceful and ingratiating charm by Michael Wilding, who contrives also to give a certain distinction to a rather difficult part. The American Lieutenant is another conventional dramatic gargoyle whose staccato exclamations, gestures and cheery self-assurance bounce him straight into the heart of the audience as he bursts from his host's bedroom in typical New Yorker underwear. He was presented with a breath-taking naturalness by Hugh McDermott, who nearly blew all the rest of the cast into the auditorium with his gale-like vigour. The French officer is drawn equally conventionally, but of an earlier date. The author has taken a stock figure of the 'nineties, and Eugene Deckers decorated him with an appropriate array of shrugs and posturings. This allied trio all make love to Lady Elizabeth Randall, who is by way of being engaged to Lord Harpenden, but is not sure whether she wants to marry him or not. Helped by another gargoylish figure in the shape of the Duke of Ayr, a role to which the accomplished Ronald Squire gave all that was in any way authentic, the play dawdles along to its happy ending with the Duke's daughter at last in the arms of the peer. As Lady Elizabeth, Jane Baxter unobtrusively and skilfully made the attentions 'paid to her by the three men credible, and indeed her acting with the American in the first scene was worthy of better things.
The present revival of Coppilia, one of the most delightful of nineteenth century French ballets, by the Sadler's Wells Company is something that ought not to be missed. In it Margot Fontcyn, Robert Helpmann and A. Rassine are at their best.
JAMES REDFERN.
Previous page
