RAY OF HOPE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 786, 5 October 1929, Page 28

RAY OF HOPE

Trenchant Criticism of London Stage

ACTORS AND ACTRESSES WON’T STUDY Iu the almost barren waste of postwar London theatre-land it is perhaps possible to discern one ray of hope. The English stage today (as compared, let us say, with 20 or 25 years ago) provides incomes for bad playwrights, bad players, bad producer's, bad composers and bad singers, writes a trenchant critic in the “New Statesman.” The general level of theatrical entertainment—for such a town as London—is almost incredibly low. They can probably do as well in Belgrade or Buenos Ayres. Stage technique—scenery, dresses and so on—has, of course, made great advances, but “production” in the proper sense of the word, that is to say the teaching of actors and actresses to “play” their parts instead of merely walking ithrough them, seems to have become jalmost a lost art. It was probably the good Queen Victoria who started the }’Ot when, in opposition to all the characteristic prejudices of the age which is known by her name, she was

persuaded to give a title to a stageplayer, a “vagabond” of genius; for from that moment actors and actresses began to cherish the ambition of becoming celebrities rather in the social than in the professional world. It is a public misfortune that the actor has ceased to be a social outcast. As an outcast he had to learn his trade and work hard for his living. The Social Side Nowadays his very profession gives him the entree to a large section of the social world. Nowadays he (or she) is lunching with Lady So-and-so when he ought to be rehearsing, or dining with Right Honourables when he ought to be studying the elements of his profession. Since the war—well there was a natural genius, a girl who died —hut is there any other actor or actress, who was not already well known in, say, 1912, who shows the slightest promise of becoming the equal of the actors and actresses of a quarter of a century ago. They do not. work nowadays. That is the : trouble. They get paid for their looks or for their spurious social prestige instead of for their work, and naturally theg take full advantage of such easy conditions. But from this perhaps rather severe tirade let us return to the ray of hope. The ray of hope consists in the fact that good plays well acted do iu fact succeed. A few random examples may serve to illustrate the point. “A Bill of Divorcement” succeeded—though unhappily its promise of more good plays or books from the same pen has never been fulfilled. “St. Joan” succeeded in spite of the acting of the leading lady. "The Constant Nymph,” in which the acting was remarkably good, almost worthy, indeed, of the play, was another great popular success. So was “Young Woodley.” And “Journey’s End” seems likely to run to full houses for an indefinite time. In short, the good plays are successful. Our trouble is that the big producers, like the owners of many popular newspapers, underrate our intelligence. We like good stuff when we can get it, but how rarely we can get it! All this is preliminary to a few brief remarks about St. John Ervine’s new play at the Haymarket. It. is not exactly new. for it has been running now for four or five weeks, and every reservable seat is sold for goodness only knows how many weeks to come. Simple Comedy

In the successes of the good plays which we have already referred to there has been in each case some sort of special appeal, some reference to problems or situations not ordinarily discussed. “Journey’s End” is the most obvious example of this. But “The First Mrs. Fraser” owes none of its success to any such extraneous or unusual factors. It is a perfectly simple social comedy, clever and well written and exceedingly well acted. That it depends very much on the acting of such old-time players as Marie Tempest, Henry Ainley and Graham Browne in no way diminishes the merit of the author who chose the right people for the right .parts—and had to go back a quarter of a century to find them. There is nothing pretentious about it; it is just funny and good—and incidentally very much hearer to life than the self-conscious psycho-analytical “realism” that is so rife today among the younger writers for the stage. One does not, after all, go to the theatre in order to be elevated to the Neo-Georgian heights of emotionless “art” or Freudian dilemma —nor, on the other hand, merely to see legs. But one wishes that the younger actors and actresses would go and watch Miss Tempest and Mr. Ainley and even Mr. Graham Browne.

But they have an engagement tomorrow with the rich and charming Snodgrass, and on Sunday they l(ave promised to go and see Lord Novello's stud, and on Monday Mr. Golpuski's new woodcuts. What a life! Shall we in 20 years’ time have anj- actors or actresses at all? The tradition of work seems to have departed from them. Mr. Ervine, in order to ensure the success of his admirable comedy, has to engage the services of players who were famous before many of us were born.