MISS DOROTHY TUTIN

Triumph for star who met the Pope
COME of the most lavish praise to.be heaped 10 upon a British actress for a long time has been given to Dorothy Tutin for her performance as Queen Victoria in Portrait of a Queen. It could not have happened to a more charming —or more capable—actress (writes the CAT1-10E1C HERALD Theatre Critic -Prompter").
But English critics and audiences are not the only ones to have been charmed by Miss Tutin. It was she, with other members of the Royal Stratford Shakespeare Company, who won such high praise from the Pope last November when they gave a rare performance of Shakespeare excerpts in the Palazzo Pio auditorium.
That was the occasion when Miss Tutin and the Pope were involved in a slight misunderstanding. After the performance she showed the Pope a very valuable First Folio of Shakespeare's play—and showed was the operative word.
The Pope, thinking it was a gift, handed the volume over to a Vatican official. Cardinal Heenan, who was on hand, intervened.
In her present play at the Vaudeville, Miss Tutin has an extremely exacting and demanding role. She is on stage for almost the entire performance during which she must "age" from Victoria as a girl, to Victoria as an old, lonely, heart-broken woman.
This is a brilliant, witty play. It is. of course, Miss Tutin's play, but this is not to say that every other part is not played well. But how can anyone else really shine when the whole story is really that of the Queen, and the Queen as played by Miss Tutin is so utterly absorbing a character?.
This is one of those rare plays when a critic can say "Recommended without reservation".
There must be reservations, however, about another play with an historic setting. Mr. Julian Mitchell's A Heritage and its Hiwory which has been based on an Ivy Compton Burnett novel and is now being staged at the Phoenix lacks all the impact and clarity which made Portrait such delightful entertainment.
Mr. Mitchell gives his characters delicious lines—there can be no other word to describe them although one wonders if anyone really ever has spoken in this style of language!—but I found it almost impossible to follow who was saying what to whom and why.
The whole story is so involved that after two and a half hours one is rather happy to 'cave the characters still sorting things out among themselves— and not really caring whether they succeed or not.