PLAY AT PARNELL

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 2, 18 January 1937, Page 3

PLAY AT PARNELL

f Margaret Rawlings' Triumph In lifting hls ban from Mrs Elo4« Sohauffler's play, " Parnell," says a London paper, the Censor has done c slgnal service to the stage. Wi.th.out a shadow of dou'bt " Parnell " will rpn and run Uke that other biograpbical play, "The Barretts of 1 Wimpob Street." The plot ls stralghtforward — a series of incldents showlng Katharlne O'Shea's unhappy marrled life, her meetlng with Parnell in a oommUtve room of the -House of Gommons, thclr mutual confesslon of abiding lovo, Captaln O'Shea's sult for dlvorce, Parnell's death with his llfe's work In ruins. The supreme virtue of this play ls that lt rlses above the bare facts of history. If Parnell had never exlsted, if Katharine O'Shea had been but a flgure of the imagination, Mrs Sohauffler's play would be not one whlt the less movlng, and her story of a great love would still strike the heart. * With her rlch, warm volce, her efTortless power of creatlng atmosphere, Margaret Rawllngs, as Katharine O'Shea glvea ae brll- , liar.t a pleoe of acting as any to be seen on the London stage. In the light of the dazzling woman whom she presents, Wyndham Goldle has a tremendous task to suggest the power and strength of Parnell, but he succeeds magniflcently, without apparent effort, without melodrama. The rest of the cast — Marda Vanne as "Aunt Caroline," Arthur Young as Gladstone, and Glen Byam Shaw as Captain O'Shea, to mention but a few — all help to make "Parnell" one of the finest and most mQVing plays in town.