BARRIE'S NEW PLAY FOR BERGNER

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 37, 27 February 1937, Page 13

BARRIE'S NEW PLAY FOR BERGNER

Here, with Miss Bergner as David, is a Cabinet of All the Talents and a Committee of the League of Nations. Yet a dramatic unity emerges, comments Ivor Brown, drama critic of the London Observer, in reviewing the new play by Sir James Barrie, "The Boy JOavid", at His Majesty's Theatre, London. It is a gentle portrait of an ungentle people and ungentle times. Pespite the international co-operation the whole is stamped with the sign of Barrie, who, tmsealing his lips after so many years of silence in the theatre, speaks with two voices, as of old. He himself has told ns of a double personality, McConachie and J .M.B. I should rather suggest that just when Sir J. M. Barrie has written something at once brilliant and " distinctive, a "familiar" called Sir J. M. Bogus arrives and smudges the fine outline with something that is soft and f alse. (Millions may be fonder of Bogus than of Barrie.) Undouhtedly in this play it was. Barrie who wrote the exquisite dialogue of the Boy David's first coloquy with Samuel, David's description of the lion "dying with a look of wonder on his face," and David's first talk with Saul about country matters in which the exalted boy and his doomed king find themselves in blissful partnership of craft, Arcades Ambo. But it was Bogus, I fancy, who inserted the coy skyward looks and the talk about the Other One. David, as a youbg member of a fiercely religious race, reared in very combative and bloody times, would have fceen told all about Jehovah, Grod of Battles and Captain of the Slingers, who taught the young Judaea how to shoot. He would know something about the Lord of Hosts and not be Bweet and shy and whimsical about Another, who might almost be livjng with the faries at tbe bottom of the garden. Written for Bergner. Sir James Barrie wrote the play for Miss Bergner, the tribute of a genius to a genius. The casting speaks for itself, and the title is further warqing. This is not King David, scarcely Prince David : it is Boy David, It is absurd to blame dramatist or players for not prooeeding where there was no intention to proceed. We are, of set purpose, not going further, except jn the visions where David is given a chance to grow up and where Miss Bergner, so far flawless in her performanoe and not least in the discretion with which she keeps Bogus at the door when Barrie seems eager to admit him further, is no longer at her best. She bas hrilliantly mastered conversatjonal English, and is a perfect partner in dialogue with Mr Tearle and Sir John Martin Harvey, but, give her poetry to recite, and she begins to drawl and" prolong her vowels so that the great lament over Saul and Jonathan is spoiled. The "vision" episodes of the later life 'are soinewhat disappointing, probably because Miss Bergner has already so endeared herself as the boy David oi the docks, chiidishly exalted by his call,. We resent the invitation to a forward glance because we are so rapt by the present one. No Hint of Murder It is a pity that the audience already knows so much of David's subsequent history, It is unthinkable that this exquisite and elfin creature whom Miss Bergner presents should become a lecherous murdered. But if the text does not hint at these bard things, ending, after an indifferent third act, on a symbol of Messianic election, it is not the business of the player to do more than portray the "boy eternal" of the dramatist' s intention. This is done with admirable wit and grace. Admittedly the performance does not expand our knowledge of the artist's gifts or versatility. It might have destroyed the author's wish had it done so. Miss Bergner was asked by a leading dramatist to play a certain kin'd of part in which he imagined her: it was a royal command, as far as the British Theatre contains such mandates, and if was executed, I fancy, exactly as the author intended. Tbe piece has intermittent power. It fascinates more than it fails. Rather too much depends upon narration: since Edinburgh it has been decided that David should kill his giant, as Medea her children, off-stage. David's prowess in most things has to be taken for granted. Of course, also, a biography which stops so 'short is difficult to shape effectively. But there is much writing which is essential Barrie, serene in its portrayal of the boy, stark and strong in its vision of the fated Saul, a part to which Mr Godfrey Tearle brings all tbe strength which we know and a haggardness of soul which is fresh and poignant. Mr Leon Quartermaine is eagle-keen as a kind of wing-forward in the Jewish front lin© of attack, and the Jesse

household offers a nice piece of family life. Mr Komisarjevsky has woven the! many talents at his dispasal into an' lmposing tapestry and lit his picture with superb eficiency.