Theatre Critic

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29714, 6 January 1962, Page 3

Theatre Critic

Curtains. By Kenneth Tynan Longmans. 4'5 pp. Index,

Kenneth Tynan has been called the most brilliant theatre critic to appear since Bernard Shaw. This volume of Mr Tynan’s dramatic criticisms covers the decade from 1950 to 1960, during which time this writer saw plays in Britain, the United States and France. He writes with equal confidence about the theatre in all three countries, and seems to imply that what he has to say about King and Cary’s “Sailor Beware” is probably as much worth the reader’s consideration as what can be perceived in Racine’s "Phedre.” Not that there is anything against his attending both these works of art. What is surprising is that he should think so many rather casual scraps of routine work worth perpetrating in book form. After all “Curtains” is an unusually bulky volume; and few critics

could hope to be at the top of their form for 475 pages. Mr Tynan, however, is a lively writer, and if he is sometimes prone to use the players as excuses for his wit —“John Gielgud. inhaling passionately through the nose, administers to every line a tremendous parsonical quiver” no doubt they are sufficiently self-assured to ignore it altogether. Even now, readers can get a good deal of amusement from Mr Tynan's rather teasing criticism of Peggy Ashcroft as Cleopatra, or of John Neville and Richard Burton in “Othello.” "Tuesday’s performance, with Mr Burton blacked up and Mr Neville a capering spiv, was a drab squabble between the Chocolate Soldier and the Vagabond King.” “The part of Macbeth needs lungs plus genius; Mr Rogers does all that lungs can.” In the American section, Mr Tynan employs a more free and easy idiom, and younger readers will be delighted with his account of a musical based on “Pride and Prejudice." "Mozart, the right man for the composer’s slot, was unavoidable; but at least we are spared anything in the nature of ‘Doing the Regency Rag,’ 'Strut Miss Lizzie Bennet,’ or —a possible theme song for Darcy—‘Playing It Cool’." In France and in two small sections dealing with the Ger-

man and Russian theatre, Mr Tynan seems to lose pace, and his lines really become heavier all the time. "The play is not without virtues; I remember a speech that superbly conveyed the atmosphere of a prostitute’s hotel.” Again, “If I had to choose the best French play of the year, I would probably go for Tchin-Tchin,’ by a young writer named Francois Billetdoux.” Mr Tynan almost clears his throat. Indeed the ponderous clubman tone of the opening words in sentences of this kind shows what happens when a bright young Englishman crosses the Channel