“NIGHT MUST FALL”

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 198, 19 May 1936, Page 3

“NIGHT MUST FALL”

Powerful Drama at Opera House Emlyn Williams’s powerful drama "Night Must Fall” was played by the J. C. Williamson company before another large and appreciative audience at the Grand Opera House, Wellington, last night. In the conventional crime play the question the author asks is, "Who did it?” But this , is not the way Mr. Williams approaches his theme,. He departs from the customary habit of intriguing the audience to guess who is the guilty one in the case 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 iu 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, lie is able to provide a tense atmosphere and “grippy” situations without the aid of an elusive identity. Hie performance of "Night Must hall is made interesting by several notable performances. The best of these is the Mrs. Bramson of Miss Ethel Morrison. As the irascible, domineering, unjust, coarsetongued old woman, sitting imperiously ;n her invalid chair, making everybody miserable round her, Miss Morrison is magnetic and stage-tilling. Another very smooth and able performance is that ot Mr. Lloyd Lambic as Dan. Miss Elaine Hamill has a difficult role at Olivia., and acquits herself very well. Miss Katie Towers is extremely breezy and comic as th > impudent cook, and Mr. Harvey Adams makes a stalwart Inspector Belsize. Miss Phyllis Baker is distinctly good as Dora I’arkoe. and Mr.. Campbell Copelin is amusing as Hubert Lauric, Olivia’s rejected admirer. Mr. Norman Shepherd, as the judge in the prologue, speaks the lines effectively. "Night Must Fall” will be played all this week with a matinee to-morrow. “The Shining Hour.” At the matinee on Saturday next this brilliant company will enter upon the last week of its short season with Keith Winter’s comedy-drama “The Shining Hour.” with Ethel Morrison, Elaine Hamill, mid Campbell Copelin in the key roles. “The Shining Hour” is one of the few plays that appealed alike to New York and London, its combined run exceeding two years. It tells a story of the lives and loves of the Lindon family—two brothers mid a sister and n wife —on a Yorkshire farm. The box plans for “The Shining Hour" will be opened at the D.I.C. tomorrow morning.