J. B. PRIESTLEY'S NEW PLAY: "TIME AND THE CONWAYS"

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 37, 6 November 1937, Page 11

J. B. PRIESTLEY'S NEW PLAY: "TIME AND THE CONWAYS"

Mr Priestley's new- play is doubly controversial, comments a London critie on J. B. Priestley's latest production, "Time and the Conways." It .will certainly provoke argument as to whether this ir. his best piece or theatre-writing and thfre, on the strength of a really rema'kable second act, the "A yes" will probably have it. Then discus'sion must arise 011 his notions of Time and Destiny. Not that Mr Priestley takes the dais, gowned, in order to give us an hour 011 "Ouspensky and After" or I'Was To-morrow Yesterday?". He is a dramatist constructing a conveisation piece— the true English doniestic interior — on canvas f etehed from a philosopher's workshop. ' This at least is certain, that everybody feels the grced of "cormorant devouring Time" and is in-some sort of instinctive revoit against this monster that is tielcing away our lives, this giant shouting aown cur little, brief articulations. We all quefetion its nature, even arraign its reality, seek to mitigate its urgency. Mr Priestley is with those who believe that we are utterly wrong in our conception of Time. Those who cannot follow him so far will certainly agrec that past experience is always present. Old pleasures and suiferings. become more actually a part of our personality as years roll on. ' Not only, as Alan Conway quotes Blake, are our joys and woes woven fine: the cloth renews itself. Nothing is lost, • Time does not destroy us, but gives up new crosssections of ourselves. The War is Over. Certainly the Conways needed this consolation. Act I. vividly reveals them as the ordinary middle-class provineiai English family in the ihour of release. The war is over. Mother 'has money cnuogh. Two sons are safe, the daughters out of the ward and the canteen. Now for life. Alan, a quietist whose mind to him a kingdoni is, ' readily accepts a routine job. But Robin, out of the Air Force, is the broth of a boy, a sale'sman born. He ..will soon' be on top of ,the wolrld.

1 ' Clever Madge, after .Girton, will- go far. Hazel, the beauty, ; will marry well. : Little Carol will be everybody's darlj|ng.- ■ Kay, dark, secretive. Kay, ratUier'apt to be the odd:girl.out, will write iher ' no-vels. It is' all going." to be tremendous. And-here they are, all paraded • "in : their humours, " ' as - the Elizabethan would have said,'at Kay's birthday party/dressed up for charades, singing, laughing,' the happy Conways. • -.Then Mr - Priestley, using ; Kay's knack'.of .looking round -a- corner, even in Time, lever s the - family- -right into 1937, and. shows us tihe -meal- thafc.;the cormorant. seems to have, made. 'Mother' has softened into a stupid,' thoughtless, old creature, and Robin has "gone utterly flabby, while' Madge and Kay ha/re hardened 'thei arteries of their- souls.' Carol is dead. ' Hazel ' has; married ahorrid little man who knows his mind' and is not afraid to r'eveal'the coarseness of its fibre. . Mother and- Robin, her favourite; ihave . squander.ed the money/', A family .wrangling . Over : its blun.ders and countingvits pence. Is this Tim.e's answer to .the Happy - Conways? ; Alan, smoking .his pie and keeping his liead,. has an. answer.' •' -This;. act w'as ' dramatically ' brilliant. The first had strained ur patience ohce .or 'twjice withi"its- excess , of chara,de.s • and party-funralthough'there'-was great skiil in the.'"planting' ' . of • ea'ch ; Cpnway. character. The 1 second act grip,ped, ' iminediately - . and V continuously. The" hard,' set .. face. of Kay— Miss E6rbes;Robertson amazingly altefed her whole person for this transitidn in" a perf ormance as good . as any . she ;bad done— established the ' mood of / diserichantmeht. - The Con\yay-home :was a. .shell of- 'shattered'-thangs.'-' Great Expectations had become Bleak House —with -the shutters torn'away. Was the effect strained, perversely pessimistic? ' I thnik hot. A balanCe'.was fc?ld. T-wo : of" the "family had' done .pr'etty well,- arid one." was serene' in -poverty. We • were seeing the whole tribe at'its worst moment.* • • • Mr Priestley; then switched us right back to the .birthday -party in 1919 and showed the. family in quieter - mood, planning its future. The tragic. irony is here presSed too hard. The fortune-. telling is a trifle too bitter. Doomed Carol, proclaimii.g her rapturous will to live, seems almost false. People don't spell life- with a capital' L itill they are feeling old. But tfliere is here one passage as striking as any in 'Act II. This is Madge's trerhbling' hesitation on the brink of a love all mlxed up with youth's drea. is (. a Brave New. World. The motner interverfes clumsily .and cruelly as the young idealist is rhapsodising, . The girl is shairied 'and her love-affair destroycd. Miss Molly Rankin's performance here is supcrb: equqlly iine, both in makeup and performance, is her picture of Made as the tight-lipped schoolmistress of Act II. The play is a unity. It has . ne idea and passion tO warm- it. HaS Mr Priestley two more pieees as good. in hand? .If so, .we are in'for a ; good' time. He has set the paee. 1 Ordiiiary. ','theatrestuff" may look very shoddy during the season to come»