BACK TO SANITY

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 974, 17 May 1930, Page 29

BACK TO SANITY

“The Three Musketeers’’ •as a Musical Comedy LATEST LONDON SUCCESS Musical comedy into history will not go, not, at least, without vexation. But no such foolish, arithmetic is attempted at Drury Lane, where Dumas, even though he comes to us by way of Florenz Ziegfeld, is allowed to go his own tempestuous way, unassisted by euties, wise-cracks, or jazz, writes a London critic of “The Three Musketeers.” . . The book is what it claims to be, “A Romantic Musical Play,” Herr Friml’s music is apt to plots,- stratagems, gasconading, and love by moonlight, and the decoration, whose talented creators remain, unmentioned on the programme, has taste with sumptuosity. The curtains are extremely beautiful. tapestry effects being cunningly and richly used. Boot-and-saddle drama (and such boots —it is the period when they had lampshades round the top! 1 is restored with an abundance of flourish. I have never seen duels fought with a more fiery zest upon the stage; ■ the slow, mechanical, slap-sword that, usually passes for good enough is dismissed in favour of the athletic lunge and desperate thrust. The first act, it is true, moves with a ponderous tread and needs quickening, but once we have reached Calais the pace is hot and the progress to the great fight in Milady’s bedchamber is furious enough to satisfy the hungriest devotee of hearts aglow and glittering steel. At Calais, too, we pause only for a song which shows the composer in his most charming mood. “Ma Belle,” finely sung by Raymond Newell, as wall soon be as hard to escape as D’Artagnan himself. A piece in this mood depends largely on the player. Dennis King, who began his career under Sir Barry Jackson at Birmingham, comes back from great triumphs in America to win immediate victory here. He is dashing and debonair, but never pompously or effusively romantic. This D’Artagnau brings up from Gascony a sense of humour as well as the familiar and unquenchable appetite for fire. Romantic and rhetorical acting has been in a poor way for some time; Mr. King restores the tradition with his lithe masculinity of attack. He can assume file way of an eagle and not preen himself on his majesty. There is r a modest, light-hearted, touch-and-go quality about his gallantry which keeps romance from turning soapy and makes swashbuckling agreeable even to those most nervous of its lime-light possibilities. Lilian Davies sings finely as the Queen, and Marie Ney,. as Milady,

brings the style, the vigour, and the resonance which are demanded by this broad-acred play, and by the vast theatre in which it is staged. Amid the courting and the cut-and-thrust is the gentle humour of

.Terrv Verno as D’Artagnan s valet, humour which only rarely fell out of period. - “Pass out” seems curious English in the France of Louis XIII. Adrienne Brune is the pretty cause of true loving running fast and far and Arthur Wontner wears the huntingpink of the great Cardinal in search of his prey. For once a musical play is not dominated by the chorus and the quiet art of formal balet replaces that simultaneous frenzy of jazzing nymphs which has been wont to set the house on a roar. It is quite lixe old times to see the “principals” as principal attractions, and the leading players no longer being led in the dance.

Charles Hallard, who' toured New Zealand some years ago with the A an-brugh-Boucicault Company, appeared as Francisco in the all-star perfoimances of “Hamlet” in London. He played the part 40 years ago Xvith Tree.