“The Cradle Song”

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 110, 30 July 1927, Page 22

“The Cradle Song”

Martinez-Sierra’s Convent Masterpiece BEAUTY AND SIMPLICITY ANE of the most brilliant of _ Spain’s playwrights is Mar-tinez-Sierra, whose “Cradle Song” has at last been produced in London. In the following article an American critic writes of its beauty and simplicity. From the tempestuous infidelity and raucous profanity of routine drama, Martinez-Sierra’s “Cradle Song” provides the most enjoyable refreshment of any production on the board. Slender, sentimental, quite innocent of originality or vigorous ideas, it spins a tender little story a gainst tho austere background of a convent in Spain. In the first of the two acts the-good sisters, whose instincts are still womanly, welcome a foundling mysteriously laid at their forbidding oaken door. In the second, set eighteen years later, they tearfully speed their daughter on her way to marriage and life in the glorious world beyond the cloister. ' From first to last there is no sharp conflict of purpose or ideal, no febrile echange of hot words, no devastating thesis to disturb the holy tranquillity of their sheltered life and devotions. When their daughter steps through the door in the last scene, perhaps never to return, the sisters fil* oul slowly toward the chapel to their evening prayers. Scarcely a word is spoken. But the pain is as bitiig as though the emotion had been fully transcribed in poetic dialogue. m Once, six years ago, “Cradle Song was hopefully offered at matinee performances. apparently with no eort« success. After seeing Eve Be Gaillienne’s performance, one can gu ess the reason. “Cradle Song” is perilo*} stuff with which to tamper. Nothing could be easier than to spatter i* s clean substance with sentimentality, o *’ to blanch its beneficence into c oving sweetness. But Miss Le Gallienn®* well-disciplined company plays it li* e a piece of music in a sombre monotone that makes each variation j n * finitely dramatic. The hush of routing within the convent becomes as articulate and far more agreeable than tnscream of life outside. Only a thoroughly practiced performance Bt:c “ + uf hers could sustain the illusion at tn deliberate quiet pace of this produc* tion, with the softness of its speaking- “ Charmingly Beautiful” Those who are weary of crises and flaming passion will find Song” charmingly beautiful.- ‘ in 1911, before the literary pesulew* of Freudianism, it treats repress!® - as pathos and complexes as pe uu . sentiment. Appropriately erlol !fi-Martinez-Sierra first came into -P r0 ® nence in Spain as author of a P*”*, poem, “Song of Labour.” puah&n He was then 17 years of age. > ' with the sponsorship of Benaven at the age of 46, he has written m numerable plavs. translations, nO% ‘ and libretti f qx ballets, musical comedies and grand opera; and M been an actor and the director 0