Annotations of Annabel

Radio Record, Volume II, Issue 31, 15 February 1929, Page 13

Annotations of Annabel

DEAREST:

‘if one had power to award dramatic cross of valour for prowess in the theatrical field in face of heaviest odds, thei would it go to Mr. Allen Wilkie for resolutely and undauntedly hitching his waggon to a star and pursuing, without haste or pause, the moon of his delight that knows no wane-presentation of the Pla lays. of hjs Well-beloved ‘Bard.

Surveying the somewhat sparse and stolid audiencé assembled to witness "Coriolanus," ‘one reflected how greatly was needed a little leaven of imagination to leaven the bland but dull reception accorded to the martial tragedy. For ’twas a notable dramatic event, past years not having afforded opportunity of witnessing the doughty needs of this particular war-lord, or listening to the inspired periods of the tempestuous Volumnia, wolfish mother of the great lion cub; ably played .by Miss Lorna Fories, who literully swept all before her, garbed in cyclamen-shot purple draperies that fringed and hung upon her magnificent proportions as though swathed by Juno herself.. , A lovely, drooping Virgilis was Hunter-Watts, making arresting féil to tae warrior-mother inciting" her more than willing hero to deeds that won the empire. The stage mob, as it blundered in and out and declaimed quite in the modern way of communist with his quarry, was strangely reminiscent of our socialist friends who occasionally lift their voices in our peaceful isles. Fierce and futile, yet were they successful in bringing extinction upon their sometime saviour who in spite of backsliding, was yet the noblest Roman of.them all. In the seething crowd of shrieking detractors I picked several familiar figures; petty, pilfering mis-chief-maker, ‘peripatetic agitator, and bustling barger, all out for themselves, as large as life, and devil take the hindmost. rresting was Mr. Wilkie as the haughty autocrat, mighty in prowess, and of eloquence unparalleled. Imposing his entrances, majestic his gesticulation, his noble lines orated with fiery force. Unhappily, by some fluke of acoustics, much of the dialogue was missed and, so to speak, went up in hot air; this being vastly disappointing to one devout listener who, on many a hot Sunday afternoon in the past, had tried and failed to read the.play through for herself.

NOTHER of the Domininon’s gifted girls is leaving shortly to follow the gleam in the wider world of opportunity that lies beyond our islands. Clever Miss Kathleen Salmond’s work as a painter is already natable, and it needs no sibyl to prophesy success for this dweller in the Scottish city of the south, which is ever prone to appreciation of whatsoever things: are lovely in the arts, and warmly generous to young strivers and treaders of the flinty path of achievement.

ALREADY the advance guard of wintry habilaments is upon us, and helmeted we shall go, or so it appears in the meantime. For which praise be, a disguising headpiece being & very present heip in time of trouble of unpowdered nose and aftermath of sunburn that would detract from the ailure of Cleopaiva herself. Ingraciating shop assistants subtly suggest the coming mode in sibilant aside, and we are initiated into the giory that is to be of revevsible siuxk of heavenly hue and texture; so that it Legins to seem hardly worth while to amass oddments at three and three-farthings, cut into strange and useless lengths, and apt, as the weeks and montas go by, sudaely to contront one like tne gnosis of forgotten sins. T wold seem that Mr. St. John Irvine, nothing if not versatile, is hardly likely to emulate, in these later years, his memorable "Changing Winds." In some snort stories recently. published, although the interest never becomes absorbing, the Irish author interests in the wide scope of his cleareyed vision, ranging from Michael, weary of his bogs, to the shy, quiet Englishman journeying to Paris to worship at the shrine of the Winged Victory, "‘tameless and swift and proud." Though disillusion is ‘the prevailing note, yet there are passages that enchain attention by virtue of intuitive observation and merciless analysis of motive, and he does not love the Bolshevists. Says one of his characters- "« . . Seems to me, when it comes to real cruelty and torture and killing, the brotherly-love merchants and the we’re-all-as-good-as-one another brigade have tyrants like Nero licked. I don’t know as I wouldn’t rather spend a weekend with old Momma Borgia. than a couple of minutes with Comrade Trotsky. I’d feel safer somehow! ! !" Your

ANNABEL

LEE