The Play

"Theatre" In The Theatre—Success Of Bonnet Over The Windmill
What an excellent play this is! And when I write "play," I mean play, for, tested by any other standard than theatrecraft, Bonnet Over the Windmill, at the New Theatre, is nonsense. The story is fantastic, the characters never breathed off a stage (which doesn't mean that they are not very much alive on it), the moral values so subservient to the effectiveness of the piece as to be scarcely worth taking seriously.
But Miss Dodie Smith doesn't care, and very rightly, for nine-tenths of the playwrights of England would throw up their " art," their smartness, their realism, their wit, their strivings after the spark of genius, to be able to write this faultless application of the conventions of stage life.
All through, you feel as though you are following an intricate but regular pattern: you know what's coming before it comes, and when it comes there is a sense of supreme satisfaction in following the craftsman's sure and steady hand. A mistake, a sudden temptation to be too clever, to escape from the pattern, to introduce a little real life—and the whole thing would come crumbling to pieces, shown up to be the utterly unreal thing which it is.
But the mistake is never made, and the audience from start to finish is imprisoned by the author in the stage world to which she has invited them. Not being allowed to apply any outside standard, they are
perfectly satisfied with what, within its own narrow and artificial limits, is almost perfect work.
Shalt I outline the story? It is scarcely worth-while. Imagine such scenes as a roof garden in Camden Town with an effective lighted skylight in the middle, turning it into a place of romantic shadows, or a lovely windmill with broken sails, standing in the moonlight in the midst of fields of corn " white unto harvest." Imagine two flats giving out on to the roof, the one with three young girls, the other with three young men. Imagine the earnest, unspoilt young creature vowed to the stage and her art. Imagine the brilliant playwright who has lost his inspiration through tragedy in the past. Imagine them standing together by the romantic windmill, silhouetted against the moon and moonlit corn—and standing for just the right amount of time to create their effect and yet not to let the audience have time to see through it all. Imagine two middle-aged " pros" of the theatre, one who has slipped down the ladder of life but kept up her spirits, the other who has achieved fame as a West End actor-manager; they have had a romance in the past; they meet again and find that neither has changed at heart. Imagine a dozen more conventional people, ideas and situations, and you have the materials of this play.
But it is in the knitting them all together, in the sure touch with which each is given exactly the value it will stand, in the perfection of stage dialogue, humour and pathos, stage comedy and stage tragedy; it is in this craftsmanship that the perfection of the play lies. And no description can convey this. It must be seen.
Miss Anne Firth, as Janet Jason, the soulful girl who succeeds in falling in love twice at first sight in the course of a week and fruitlessly and footlingly sacrifices herself for another man's art, dominates the piece, and she has the skill to let her face and body, so perfectly suited to her part, do half her work. James Mason, as the dramatist who has lost his spark, manages cleverly the subtlest and most difficult part.
Neither Miss Ivy St. Helier nor Cecil Parker find much difficulty in getting all there is to be got out of the fairytale roles of children of the stage under any disguise. Finally, a word of praise for Miss Betty Jardine, who never fails to raise the laugh which the author in her supreme wisdom has decreed to come just there and there and there, as the audience needs it.
M. B.
Going Greek
"Ladies and gentlemen, we are all extremely grateful for your wonderful reception. If you have liked us ask your friends to come and see us, and 1 promise you that we will do our best to amuse them equally with what we believe to be a typical clean,
and therefore wholesome, English musical comedy, full of tuneful music and pretty girls." This was Leslie Henson's speech at the end of one of the most delightful musical comedies produced in London this year.
I have purposely given it word for word, for it accurately describes Going Greek. When I took up the programme and noticed that the lyrics were by Douglas Furber I Was certain that we were in for a good time and 1 was not disappointed. I don't think that Douglas has ever been in better form; the audience was kept in roars of laughter throughout the evening.
Mr. Henson will forgive me if I single out Fred Emney for the chief acting laurels for his most amusing character study of a bandit. He is indeed a chip of the old block and is nobly carrying on family traditions. I cannot close without paying a warm tribute to Debroy Somers and his band for their share in this production.
WALTER a BECKETT.
We Love And Learn
A few weeks ago in criticising a new play at the Richmond Theatre I ventured to suggest that we owed a great debt of gratitude to the little playhouses on the outskirts of the 'Metropolis who were courageously producing plays by unknown authors and thus were acting as a sort of theatrical greenhouse for West End production. It
was therefore with great interest that I awaited the lifting of the curtain on the new play We Love and Learn. I sincerely hoped that it would be the success that its predecessors had been but unfortunately I am not able to record that fact.
The play deals with married couples whose chief object appears to be to transfer their affections from their rightful spouse to another's; consequently not only is the play rather disagreeable, but it does not ring true.
For instance. 'on the rise of the curtain we arc introduced to a young lady dissertating with a rather cheeky waiter on the romance afforded by the moon. The replies she receives from the said waiter should have certainly got him the sack were they reported back to the manager. I have given this one incident to show the kind of fare provided.
I hope this slight set-back will not discourage the management of the Richmond Theatre and that it will continue in the splendid work it has begun.
WALTER a BECKETT.
Crazy Days
Crazy Days—" what more apt title to meet the times we live in, with crazy music, crazy people, lambs, dogs, pavements and quilts, not to mention politics, politicians, governments, marriage and divorce—" so runs Mr. Stanley Lupino's message to the
audience at the Shaftesbury, inserted in every programme. Perhaps he's right, and if the editorials of the Catholic Herald. which seem to say that the crazier the world becomes the better, as it shows people that they are not little gods after all, are well-founded, Stanley Lupine must be giving his audiences a first-rate moral lesson.
At all events craziness, to judge by this show, is no bar to vitality, what with Miss Gloria Day's tireless dancing, Mr. Leo Franklyn's (in the temporary absence of Mr. Laddie Cliff) throwing himself all about the stage, Miss Marjorie Browne's singing, Mr. Dick Francis' defence in word and act of the fat men, and, best of ail, Mr. Lupino's clowning.
But I needn't go on. A show without rhyme or reason, but with some scenes that made me laugh nearly as painfully as did Harry Tate when I was a boy. There's my private test. I can still feel the pain in the chest as I sat in the Hippodrome watching Motoring, Two or three times since I have laughed nearly as much. I think that the farcical ghost scene in this show has come nearest to those memories of early and simple youth. And I'm sure I'm much harder to please now!
And here's another test: I think, yes, think I shall actually pay to see this show again before it ends. M. B.