MR. SHAW ON MARRIAGE

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 79, 30 September 1931, Page 7

MR. SHAW ON MARRIAGE

REPERTORY SOCIETY'S

SUCCESS

George Bernard Shaw's comedy, "Getting Married," is the latest production of the National Repertory Theatre Society, and it is its thirty-first play. As produced and performed at, the Y.W.CA. Hall last evening, the play was easily ahead ofit» thirty predecessors. It showed, too, the progress the society is making and) mci« dentally, piling up the ■ debt against Wellington playgoers who in recent years, but for its efforts, have had little opportunity of seeing stage plays and very little prospect of seeing any professional productions for some time to come. The choice of "Getting Married" was ambitious, but then the society is nothing if not enterprising. The play selected, like so many of those of Shaw, is "100 per cent, talking." It is the vehicle by, which Shaw, the rebellious philosopher,' endeavours to convey his opinions on marriage—perhaps, he would call them convictions. There is very little scope for action in this play—the dialogue's the thing. 6haw was a professional critic of playi and the way they were acted, and being by nature the rebel he is, he seems to have said of the English theatre, "I'll show you how this sort of thing should be done," and taking off his coat he set to work with iconoclastic frenzy, hurling theatrical idols from their pedestals, smashing the stained-paper glass windows in the sacred fane, cleaning up the rubbish, of shams, and then (with his tongue in. his cheek) exclaiming, "There you are; now you see what the theatre ought to be.™ Thereby he won tremendous applause, and his plays and their prefaces took theif place among the continuous "best sellers'* in the book shops. Perhaps Shaw smashed the romantic in the English theatre, for iconoclasts are not very careful when they set to work in earnest. No matter; Shaw is always witty, always entertaining, and in any case playgoers are not compelled to countenance his views on marriage 015 anything else. So the audience at the V.M.C.A. Hall last night settled itself comfortably in.ita seats, in the right mood to be amused, and it was, for the cast was admirable in every way. Every member was practically word perfect, but some of them wer» not quite clear in articulation —a matte* of high importance in any play of Shaw* and especially so in his "(Setting Married,'' for. it demonstrates' the difference be« tween the joke and a loaf of which th« half is better than no bread. For th« rest the cast was excellent, containing members who played quite np to the highest professional standards. No point was missed;' the action was always 6uited to the word; and the humour of the play was allowed to flow fresh, bubbling, anil sparkling. To Mrs. Ina Allan was allotted the parli of the Lady Mayor, Mrs. George Collins. ' It was made alive and convincing, and should have satisfied even its exacting creator. Mr. 0. N. Gillespie, as Collins, the greengrocer and waiter, was.itt his element. The part fitted him ad well as his municipal robe. Mr. Gillespi«i has done some fine work for,the society but nothing better than his presentation of Collins. A truthful, natural, and most agreeable portrait of the reasonable an 4 happily married woman with no illusion* was furnished by Mrs. G. E. Hunter, af the Bishop's wife. Miss Hilda Miles waJJ called upon to play the part <of Lesbia* Mrs. Bridgenorth's unmarried sister, typical of women who want to keep their cakd and eat it too, and she gave a clever delineation of the type. Leo Bridgenorthj whose polyandrical notions are not quit* so uncommon as they seem in the.play,was admirably represented by Miss Marjorie Statham, a brainy actress with natural personal charm. Mr. E: S. Baldwin has played many parts in his time* but none better than that of the Bishop of Chelsea last night. He,.too, it seems safe to suggest, would have earned commendation from Shaw for the convincing manner in which he dealt,with the part. Clever work too was seen in their readings of the parts of St. John Hotchkiss by Mr. Norman Byrne, of Reginald BridgenortU by Mr. Victor S. Lloyd, of General Bridgenorth, by Mr. K. E. Pope; and_ of th« bridegroom—by Mr. Jasper Baldwin.' The part of Soames, the Bishop's ascetic chaplain, who did not object to being addressed as St. Anthony, was competently filled by Mr. J. R. Herd. Miss Denzil Murphy was a wise selection for the part of Edith, the bride who suddenly realised all that getting married implied. She entered thoroughly into the merry Bpirit o£ the play, looking and acting the part. Tha Beadle was a sound piece of acting of a minor part by Mr. Hector Burns. The success of the play with the audience was assured from the outset. It will be repeated this evening. '

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