London Theatre for Experiments

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 152, 17 September 1927, Page 22 (Supplement)

London Theatre for Experiments

James Agate is Not Impressed

A CURIOUS FAIRY TALE

±n Arts Theatre, for the pre

sentation of new plays, has been started in London. One of its claims is that it is experimental. ' TAMES AGATE, critic for the ‘‘Sunt) tiav Times,” attended the nist pti ; lormance, which consisted of severa

one-act plays. . Here is part of his criticism. — 'Ate evening's piece do resistance was, of course, “The Tale ot The Soldier ” read, played and danced to the text of G. F. Kamuz and the music of Stravinsky. This entertainment seemed to me to be the kind of thing which delights super-highbro ns s and very young children, but nobody m boThe stage presented a theatre within a theatre. Set back from the real tootlights was a tiny proscenium lit up by smaller footlights. The tiny curtain, raised and lowered by a proclaimed stage-hand, showed a primitive sea and a primeval monster, three whalers making a bee-line for a fishy grave, while icebergs looked on derisively. The symbolism of this work ot art escaped me. To the left was the orchestra, whose members amused for a time by wiping their brows, taking off their sweaters, and so on, in imitation of musical manners at Pfnsk. Schrmkrysz and other Russian wateringplaces. I am told that Mr. Stravinsky s instructions were that the musicians should spit freely: this was not carried out. Since, in this theatre, it takes two to tell a fairy tale, there is a reader as well as the actors. As these are not ready, the reader must chat .with the orchestra, light a cigarette, drink beer, and play patience. Was this amusing? Grown-ups laughed. Moby-Dick being rolled up, a morbidly Tyrolese young soldier stepped into the framework and said something like:

“I’m a soldier on leave, so hey-diddle-diddle, Until the pubs open I’ll play on my fiddle!”

“He’s a soldier on leave,” repeated the reader, in case we hadn’t understood. The Devil, disguised as an old gentleman, then appeared, and the rest of the play was a version of the Faust legend simplified for nursery tots of five. There is nothing to discuss in this-play presented in terms of the highbrow-infantile. To me it all seemed very like that party in the satirical novel the invitations to which were written on children’s notepaper with pink woolly lambs on top and concluding: “Please tell Nurse to call for you at four a.m.”

Probably I am not wrong in believing the clou to the whole affair to be Stravinsky’s music. One distinguished musical critic told me that the score was in the composer’s second manner, while another, equally distinguished, bade me look upon it as his third. Herein I was reminded of two accounts, by two equally credible eye-witnesses, of Mr. Tolley’s recent adventure at the last hole at St. Andrews. Mr. Tolley was a yard short and missed the putt, said one; Mr. Tolley was over-greedy and missed coming back, insisted the other. Let me not be deemed irrelevant; the analogy is fitting because Stravinsky’s music is “aye fechtin’ agin ye!” as old Allan Robertson used to say in the other connection. If in this score for violin, double bass, clarinet, bassoon, cornet, trombone and percussion, Stravinsky wearies the patience of the normal ear, it is only because he holds out entrancing promise and fulfils it in the new-fangled, less entrancing convention. In this little score melody makes a bee-line for cacophony. “The isle is full of noises,” said Caliban. “Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not.”

The little theatre of the Arts Club was undeniably full of noises. Did all of them give delight, and did none of them hurt just the weeniest, teeniest bit? People more knowledgeble than T assured me, however, that Mr. Stravinsky’s tango, waltz. rag-time, chorale, etc., etc., were all exceedingly pretty.

Hugh E. Wright was so satisfied with his own production, “The Ghost Train,” that he has played the part of the Cornish stationmaster at every stopping place. He will shortly be playing the part in New Zealand.

In “The Cage,” by Joan Temple, produced at the Savoy Theatre, London, there is shown once more the revolt of the younger generation against the older—perhaps sounder —views of their Victorian parents. Father, full of sympathy for everyone that counts, stands out as a drab background behind a wife who, in spite of a comic face, has a will of her own. Daughter Number One lives at an age when women are supposed to be so much more numerous than men. She loves “not wisely but too well” a married man, whose wife is in a lunatic asylum. Daughter number two begins by being a puritan—the “how could you have done such a thing!” sort of puritan. But daughter number two reads books of a nasty character. She even lends those books to the servant girl. Altogether there is a combination of the sex play not sufficiently near to life to show any particular purpose, and the play that is not near enough to farce to make absurd scenes consistently laughable. The play was fairly well served by a cast which included Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies, who seldom seemed to believe in her part; Sydney Fairbrother, less funny than usual; C. V. France, who always gets the most out of a part; Gwendoline Evans; and Pollie Emery, who can still extract a scream from an ordinary line.

America still continues to draw away many of England’s most accomplished actors and actresses, and now London is to lose that most versatile of Shakespearean actors, Baliol Holloway, who has joined the.company of the Theatre Guild of New York for its coming season. It will not be his first visit to the States, for he was over there three or four years ago. and it was after his return that he played for two seasons as leading man at the Old Vic..