REPERTORY PRODUCTION

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 192, 10 May 1940, Page 14

REPERTORY PRODUCTION

With the staging of “The Voysey Inheritance” for a season of five performances in the concert chamber of the 'Town Hall, Wellington, the first being given tomorrow night, the Wellington Repertory Theatre will add the name of Harley Granville-Barker to the list of playwrights whose works they have presented. When “The Voysey Inheritance” was first produced in London, Mr. William Archer, the famous dramatie critic, wrote: “When the curtain went up on 'The Voysey Inheritance’ I had not the slightest idea what was in store for me. Imagine my delight when I found myself, from the first, interested and absorbed; and at the end I realized that here was a great play, a play conceived and composed with original mastery and presenting on its spacious canvas a greater wealth of observation, character and essential drama than was to be found in any other play of our time.” “fi'lie Voysey Inheritance” introduces audiences to a suburban, upper-middle-class home. There are only seven characters outside the family, which numbers 11—and several of these are brilliant studies. The action of the play rises from old Voysey, the “intensely respectable” family solicitor, living by gambling with his clients’ mouey. Then he dies, and has son and partner, Edward, has to reveal to the family the nature of the “Voysey inheritance.” The eccentricities of the different members of the family, the clashing of temperaments, their various viewpoints, and their priceless, unconscious humour, combine to make the play a memorable one. Indeed, as a delicate picture of manners and a profound study of character, it has, perhaps, never been surpassed. Mr. L. du Chateau is producing “The Voysey Inheritance” for the Wellington Repertory Theatre.