“NIGHT MUST FALL”

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 197, 18 May 1936, Page 2

“NIGHT MUST FALL”

Outstanding Performance By Miss Ethel Morrison LAUGHTER AND THRILLS “Night Must Fall,” a play in three acts, bv Emlyn Williams. Cast: — Lord Chief Justice .... Norman Shepherd Mrs. Bramson Ethel Morrison Olivia Grayne Elaine Hamill Hubert Laurie Campbell Copelm Nurse Libby Enid Hollins Mrs. Terence Katie Towers Dora Parkoe Phyllis Baker Inspector Belslze Harvey Adams I) au Lloyd Lamnle

Had “Night Must Fall’’ been written by George Bernard Shaw it would assuredly been classed among his "Plays Unpleasant.” Although this play by Mr. Emlyn Williams, a young man of talent who played a leading role in the London production (still running), has plenty of light relief, vigorous and distasteful enough in places, to cause hearty laughter, the impression conveyed by the play is one of unhealthy morbidity behind a screen of light raillery. For all this Mr. Williams’s play has certain qualities not to be denied. Though the play be a murder mystery thriller in genre, the playwright departs from the customary habit of intriguing his audience to guess who is the guilty one in the cast by frankly divulging the guilt of "Baby-Faced” Dan. Indeed, not content with a mere divulgence, he introduces the play with a brief prologue, a judge, in scarlet and ermine, in a spotlight, dismissing the appeal made by Dan's counsel. So we know where we are from the start, and it is all to Mr. Williams’s credit that, having given the show away, he is ab’e to produce a tense atmosphere and “grippy” situations without the aid of an elusive identity.

“Night Must Fall,” then, will entertain those people who likke their emotionalism in thick slabs, and their feelings harrowed by a hovering slayer of women, while there may be others who will be entertained in a greater degree by the clever characterisations presented rather than by the subject matter of the play itself. This “Baby-faced” Dan (who, by the way, is not baby-faced) is an elderly page-boy at a country hotel, allegedly an extremely lonely, wood-encompassed spot (which makes one wonder why an hotel should be so placed). A lady guest at the hotel is missing when Dan calls at the house of a wealthy, eccentric, old pseudo-invalid lady named Mrs. Bramson, presumably to visit Dora Parker (with whom he has been illicitedly intimate), and who is described in the programme as Mrs. Bramson’s maid. Dan is evidently a “spell-hinder,” for he make an immediate impression with the old lady, to such an extent that he is taken into service as her personal attendant. By his wit, gaiety, and savoir faire, Dan soon becomes a “familiar” about the house, and is accepted by all save Olivia Grayne. the much-bullied niece and secretary of Mrs. Bramson. Comes the news that police are searching the woods and ground for the missing lady: then the discovery of her headless body in the Bramson rubbish-pit. Dan listens to everything without turning a hair; even makes fun of the publicity it brings, to the Bramson menage (the old lady being particularly intrigued). It is Olivia, the psychic, who senses the murderer in Dan. and yet has a “feeling” for him.

Behind all his play-acting this Jekyll and Hyde person is deep. He knows that Mrs. Bramson has a large sum of money on the premises, and choosing an evening when all the terror-stricken household is out, be smothers the old lady, and is about to. decamp with the wad of notes, when Olivia bursts in distraught. In the course of a crazy scene (for which there is not a great deal of excuse), she learns at last that Dan is a murderer. She is about to pay the penalty of that knowledge when Inspector Belsize, of the police, breaks in and arrests Dan on a charge of double murder, and Dan, vain, boastful, debonair to the last, declares, “Well. I’m goin’ to be hanged in the end. . . . But they’ll get their money's worth at tne trial. You wait!” With that, cigarette in mouth, he swaggers off to bis doom. The performance of “Night Must Fail” was made interesting by several notaole performances. The best of these was the Mrs. Bramson of Miss Ethel Morrison. Wc have seen this actress in comic opera, in musical comedy, in light comedy, but it remained for "Night Must Fall” to reveal her not only as a mistress of coniedj, but a dramatic actress of surprising strength and tensity. As the irascible, domineering, unjust, coarso-tongued old woman, sitting imperiously in her mvaad chair, making everybody miserable around her, Miss Morrison was magnetic and stage filling; when she becomes terror-stricken at being left alone, she gave a shudaersome display of an hysterical old lady frightened to death; while her final scene, when exhausted, with Dan. was a tender blend of humour and pathos. Miss Morrison has never done anything better dramatically in her career than Mrs. Braumson. In make-up, gesture, hand-play, modulation, and expression, she lived the part—and what a voice! Another very smooth and able performance was that of Mr. Lloyd Lamble as Dau. He made the mentally-deranged young man a likeable light-hearted, disarming youth, and revealed tensity and power when, after a narrow escape at the hnndf> of the police inspector, he breaks down—“conks out, as the cook puts it. He also had art enough in the last scene to hold the audience in his grip when about to murder Olivia. One could almost sense Dau s fiendish mind in that scene. M iss Elaine Hamill had a difficult role as Olivia, and acquitted herself very we.l. This highly-strung psychic has to the almost impossible. Bhe. declares h hatred for Dan, yet shields him m the hat box episode: and there is little doubt that even though she knows him to. be a “killer ” the girl > s in ' ov< ’ wllh ' linl ' Olivia has returned to the house on the fateful nicht for no other purpose than to nrove that Dan is the guilty one. A confusing character, this—a nervous iumpv girl of refinment and enlture. ye one who falls for a mnrdbrer. Miss Hamill plaved sensitively, disguising her beauty behind spectacles and brusherl-back hair. Mi’s Katie Towers was extremely breezy and comic as the imnurlent cook, and Mr. Harvey Adams made a stalwart Inspector Belsize Miss Phyllis Beker was (lislinctlv rood as Dora Barkoe. and Mr. Campbell Oonelin was amusimr a= Hubert I,auric. Olivia’s rejected admirer. . Mr. Norman Shenherd. as th» indtre in the prologue, spoke th" linos effectively. The nlay was originally produced by Mr. flrn-nn MaeMnhon. “Nirht Must Fall” will be Moved all the week with a matinee on Wednesday O» Sntnrdav ni.-ht that charming may. “The Shining TTonr.” will he staged.