MARIE, MARIE, QUITE CONTRARY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 64, 13 September 1940, Page 9

MARIE, MARIE, QUITE CONTRARY

N company with Hector Bolitho, Noel Coward, and several other writers, St. John Ervine long cherished the desire to write a play for Marie Tempest. And just as Bolitho, the shy lad from New Zealand, saw his dream come true when Miss Tempest played in his "Victoria and Disraeli" (an event already described in The Listener), so Ervine finally had the satisfaction of seeing this queen of the English stage performing in a play by him -‘ Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary." The NBS has produced a radio version of the play, and it has already been presented over National stations. It will be heard in the evening programme from 2YA Wellington on Sunday, September 22. St. John Ervine admits that Marie Tempest was the first actress in London, when he arrived there, to capture his heart. Years passed; the first Great War was fought; Marie Tempest travelled far from England, and while she was acting in distant parts of the world, St. John Ervine wrote his play for her. In 1922, when Miss Tempest was on. her way home from the East, his dream almost came true. Her return voyage was by way of New York and he sent his play to her there. He learnt that when she arrived in England, she would open with a season of the play. But Marie was contrary. To his amazement and disappointment she changed her mind and opened in a revival of one of. her old favourites, ‘Good Gracious, Annabella " (which, incidentally, she played in Wellington in 1918). St. John Ervine had to wait a long time before his dream came true, but come true it finally did,