THESPIAN PRODUCTION

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 41, 12 November 1937, Page 3

THESPIAN PRODUCTION

Last night's performance of “The Two Mrs. Carrolls,” by the Thespians in the concert chamber of the Wellington lown Hall, was a convincing production of straight drama. The play is centred round Geoffrey Carroll, an artist, to. whom beauty is all-important. For him even death is beautiful when it suits his own ends, and he uses it to avoid the unpleasantness of telling his wives that he is no longer in love with them. At least he attempts to. The first time he is unsuccessful and he has the good fortune to escape with a bad fright. The second time he is less fortunate. Sally Carroll, his second wife, learns of his intention to kill her from Harriet, the woman who, as his first wife, let Geoffrey off with a warning. Sally is still in love with Geoffrey, and her reluctance to realise her danger and accept the facts as presented to her by Harriet is replaced by fear and horror as the development of the plot leaves no room for doubt. The outstanding performance was that of Zenocrate Mountjoy, whose interpretation of Sally did not fail to convince for a moment. H. N. Hannah, the man to whom poisoning his wives* was an easier way than hurting their self-esteem, gave another convincing performance. In his scenes with Sally toward the end of the play, when horror and rnge born of desperation were the driving forces in the action and the speeches, he maintained a nervous tension that was a little stark in its reality. A feature of the production was the setting and lighting. It was at no time a distracting influence, a fault common in amateur work, hut it was another factor in a well-balanced entertainment.