Play Came Alive At Curtain Calls

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30487, 8 July 1964, Page 18

Play Came Alive At Curtain Calls

"Hotel Paradiso” really came alive during the curtain calls, which reproduced the ‘flicks’—jerks and flashes and all. Unfortunately Phoenix’s current production needed life a. little earlier. A misjudged style of production and an over-padded script defeated the honest efforts of the players to make of this French farce any more than a predictable routine.

It would appear from the incidental music during “emotional” scenes, and from the deliberate delivery of all the. actors, that the director, Alan, de Malmanche, had decided to burlesque the melodramatic possibilities of the play, rather than toss off the farce. While the asides to the audience and the satirical Don Juan scenes came off well, the over-all loss of pace took away any zip the play might have had. Two lengthy scene changes did nothing to help. The play has an excellent second act, shakily propped by a flimsy first act and a tediously drawn-out third. The second act mixes husbands and wives, girls and boys, ghosts and policemen in a zany .romp through the bedrooms of a shady hotel It is all very nicely naughty, and very good fun. But one act doesn’t make a play. Hector Smith made a richly vulgar hotel manager, Shirley Rushton dithered nicely as the neglected wife, and Joe Waller gave some of his lines delightfully—his balletlike expressions of joy, passion and relief were his best moments. John Nash and Vivian Drummond managed their growls and stutters admirably. There are 18 players in the cast, and it was in skilful manipulation of such a large number that Mr de Malmanche showed his undoubted ability to use the stage. The use of colour (Duffy-like in effect—pinks and blues setting the French atmosphere) gave the play something of the gaiety it lacked in the playing. “Hotel Paradiso” will play in the Repertory Theatre for five nights this week: most of last night’s audience found themselves laughing from time to time, but the in-betweens were just too long.—P.R.S.