MERTON HODGE PLAY THAT RAN FOR FOUR PERFORMANCES

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 49, 13 March 1937, Page 13

MERTON HODGE PLAY THAT RAN FOR FOUR PERFORMANCES

None of the fiiet night critics held out much hope of "The Orchard Walls" enjoying a run. It went for four performances and then had to bo withdrawn. Considerable space was given by all the newspapers to this adap tation by Dr. Merton Hodge of Ladislaus Fordor's Hungarian play. Bux quite Ihe most pithy and most directl.v to the point proved to be the xemark by M.r Ivor Brown, in the Obesrver: "My experience is that adapting Hungar'an plays for the London stage is risky. What floats on the Danubo often sinks on the Thames; the Hungarian ;s taste is for more artificiai stories, situations and performance; their nights are guadier." Mr Jaines Agate, in the Sunday Times, wrote: "The play is so wilfully and defianily bad that it is worth while explaining why . . If plays as bad as this run a year or two, why, then, farewell to playwriting as an art for the theatre, and hail the advent of tho straggling strip of cinema-fodderl. • . . If tho younger generation of a-ctrcsses think that they are ever going to approach within 40,000 miles of Miss Irene Vanbrugh they are mistaken. They have not mastered the rudiments of any oue of the eight or 10 arts o± acting of which Miss Vanbrugh is tbe coinp'lete mistress— wit, charm, poise, manner, gait, repose, enunciation and vis comica. To watch this brilliant artist makq bricks out of straw was a complete lesson in acting. Mr Arfchur Sinclair had the even more difficult task of making straw out of notlrng at all. A bomb would not have blown up this play more effectively than cne single intonation of thia great comedian, who needs an O'Casey to staild up to him. The play was raptufously received by an immensely smart house. But I know nuder audiences whereby the more than talented players must have shaken the yolk of in auspicious eggB from their play-wear-ied flesh." Anticipation had been very keen, for anything from the pen of Dr. Hodge is looked for with interest in theatreland. , After its failure at the St. James the announcement is now made that "The Orehard Walls" was done in Amerif a in 1935 as "Love is Nbt So Simple," which is a translation of the Hungarian title. The version was made by Philip Moeller, and the leading parts taken by Ina Claire and Dennis King. It was a Theatre Guild production; it opened out of town and failed cven to reach New York.