Sauce For The Playwright

IN a recently published volume, a study of the great players, The Actor and His Audience, Mr. W. A. Darlington. drama critic of the Daily Telegraph, and the doyen of the craft in England, tells us that we may be entering on a new era of theatre vitality in this country.
Our audiences are good. Our players have revolted against the ideological drama of the Edwardians and the Georgians. The modern playgoer balances enthusiasm with discrimination; our best actors, Sir Laurence Olivier. Sir Ralph Richardson, Mr. Donald Wolfit and Mr. John Gielgud, the leader of the rebellion against the Archer-Shaw intellectual school. have large follow ings. During the past five years, two brilliant Hamlets, two King Gears, from Olivier and Wolfit and one in preparation from Gielgud, Richard HI. Richard It Henry IV. other Shakespearean works, and Marlowe. Sheridan, Webster, Jonson, Congreve. Ibsen, Greek tragedy, Rostand and Checkov have been recreated and played in all their splendour by this new generation.
Their period of power compared with the Shavian heyday, of nearly 30 years, reveals that now we have a magnificent classical theatre and then we had, at best, a good dramatic debating club and, at worst, something for which only the Greeks had a printable word.
William Archer was scarcely dead before the old gentleman was
buried. The clamour of life and the music of poetry were echoing over the river from the Old Vic where Miss Baylis was refashioning the drama. Today, as an influence on actors of less than 70 years of age. Mr. Shaw would be as effective were he stuffed and mounted on mahogany in the British Museum; like Miss Hayworth, the first cuckoo and the fluctuations of the sweet ration. he is useful, to hard-working journalists, for an occasional headline; if he makes any intellectual impact on the newer generation, it is to set us wondering how he got away with his line for so long. We like him; he is an institution and lovable, like Waldron Smithcrs. Willie Gallacher. Mr. Bevin and the Panda in Regent's Park. But we know that, with Northcliffe, he was a lucky fellow who found a large audience of semi-literates awaiting him, fashioned by the new Education Acts into a market for his line in novelties.
Mr. Percy, that brilliant Shavian CROSSWORD SOLUT1ON.—No, Se.
ACROSS: 1 Lough Derg, 6 Devil, 9 Weeds, 10 Enigmatic, II Unepilt, 12 Finland, 13 Delta, 14 Dinothere, 17 Yorkshire, 21 Spire, 23 Worship, 25 Plastic, 26 Tidal Wave. 27 Eyots, 28 Hosea, 29 Hesitates.
DOWN: 1 Low Sunday, 2 Utensil, 3 Hospitals, 4 Elected, 5 Griffin. 6 Demon, 7 Vitiate, 8 Laced, 15 Testament, 16 Exercises, 18 Reredos, 19 Impeach, 20 Empress, 22 Introit, 23 Witch, 24 Hama. producer and English actor, gathered, this, year, the faithful at Malvern, but they were few and their numbers had to be swollen by an excellent torch singer and a few young players out for experience. Sit Ralph and Sir Laurence were at the seaside; the others were rehearsing
Eliot and Shakespeare. The stage had said goodbye to Bernard.
In Heaven Sir Henry Irving must be chuckling when he notes how the tide has turned, his way, against the bright young writers of his day. And the restoration of life to the theatre has been the work of the actors, his successors. Miss Baylis paved the way and Mr. Gielgud's Hamlet brought final victory. Since then the classical position has been established. But what of the bright young writers of today? Where are they? In this column it has been noted during the past few weeks that the majority of good plays in London are American. Out of six new productions in the West End next week there is only one new British play, one revival of a mediocre comedy, one Irish play, one translation from the French to Irish, The Tempest and a Spanish revival; Tobacco Road, which, its sponsors tell us, on large posters, " shocked the News of the World" and omit to tell that it bored Toll CATHOLIC HERALD, is being exhumed from one theatre and reinterred at another. One native play in the busiest week we have known in the theatre for months is a poor crop. What is sauce for the actor is sauce for the playwright and the truth is that neither the actor nor his audience will look at the dreary talky-talky rubbish that modern playwrights are serving us. Mr. Darlington in his book speaks prudently of the renaissance in our drama and possibly his reason for this prudence, apart from his natural modesty, is the dearth of vital playwrights.
They must be found or this magnificent classical theatre of ours may degenerate into a magnificent museum.
Search Your Heart (ToRcii) is a naive little play about a school and the conflict between modern teachers. played by Mr. Arthur Howard and Miss Margaret Dewhurst, who wear comfortable flannels. tweeds and the latest from St. Martin's School of Art and reactionaries who dress like shabby bank clerks and preserved feminists. The moderns want to slide in the frost with the children, teach them to sing and use the telephone; the reactionaries, who are fundamentalists, believe their pupils should study history, etc. One is not sure which side won because Mr. Arthur Howard, who is so whimsical. doggy and pipey that I expected him to levitate, went off with his married secretary in the cause of true love, in the third act. W. J. I.
THIS WEEK the gardening article and "All Sorts" will be found on page 6.