“THE ROOF”

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 852, 21 December 1929, Page 33

“THE ROOF”

New Galsworthy Play Seen in London

NOT A MAJOR WORK

John Galsworthy’s new play, “The Roof,” was produced at the Vaudeville Theatre, London, last month. Ivor Brown, one of England’s foremost dramatic critics, writes of the play as follows: The scene is a small Parisian hotel frequented mainly by the English, who whisper its quiet fame for good cooking. The night waiter is the only French character, and he would seem to be fairly well denationalised, being the “old dear” of a kindly playwright’s fancy rather than the relentless tipsnatcher of Parisian actuality. Among the English visitors are some young bloods whom on the night of the play an optimist might describe as dionyslac and a realist as disgusting. One of them, being rebuked for corrupting the young by the old waiter, tries to play a joke on him which results In a serious fire. The next act shows the news of calamity breaking into four different bedrooms, and the last shows the scene on the roof to which the people are hustled while the firemen are summoned.

The central portion of the play introduces us to the private life of Mr. Lennox, an author with a weak heart, his wife, and their tumultuous children; to Mr. and Mrs. Beeton, an elderly couple in whom the holiday spirit takes its natural form of mutual exasperation, and a couple of elegant runaways who are supping off caviare and kisses when the fire intervenes. Mr. Lennox cannot stand the strain of a climb and dies, not without a considerable nobility of sentiment for which J. H. Roberts supplies a duly unctuous delivery. The Lennox children (Peggy Simpson and Ann Casson) are exce'lent company. The stage romping of the young is usually self-conscious and intolerable, but in this case it is easygoing and entertaining. The runaways have not much to say for themselves, but the Beetons are great fun, Mr. Beeton being the meek little squire who has to keep jumping out of bed to alter a light, open a window, turn off a trickling tap, and skirmish with a vagrant mosquito. Basil Dean and Aubrey Hammond have made a great success of the roof scene and of the fire. There is some “making good” achieved by the recently vinous and suddenly heroic English revellers, and the old waiter is brought up at the last gasp. Horace Hodges is just the actor to turn the footsore old codger into a bundle of charm. So delightful Is the suave and swift old slave of the serviette, who spends peaceful Sundays fishing on the Seine, that it seems impossible he should still be at work: he ought to have made a fortune in tips years ago “The Roof” is not one of Mr. Galsworthy’s major works, but It is characteristic in Its range of character and sympathy, its humour and its sentiment. The first act is limited in instinct by the fact that young drunks are poor company, and that Frank Lawton, freed at last from the growing pains of young Woodley, has nothing to do in this piece but smile through his hiccoughs, and exercise proof against all charm. The various scenes of the second act are much better, and the roof scene is a fine piece of stage

contrivance. There is a company of all the talents, and in addition to those mentioned, one remembers particularlv Hilda Sims and Ben Field as th Beetons, Lydia Sherwood and Madeittoo. Carroll Unfortunately, in a nie°e with such widely divided interest none of them has a part according tO Mr. S Galsworthy was ever the friend Of poise, and this time he has balanced a characteristic piece so that no star seines; all share a gentle and suffused radiance of the dramatists humour and sentiment.