KING’S THEATRE

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 229, 22 June 1940, Page 7

KING’S THEATRE

Following the fortunes of the young, shy and unsophisticated Mrs. de Winter, second wife of Maxim de Winter, wealthy owner of Manderley House, “Rebecca,’’ which has entered the third week of a higbly-successfu] season at the King’s Theatre, is’ more a psychological study than an ordinary story of the beginning-middle-and end variety. Formerly the underpaid and overworked companion of a gushing American woman, the young girl meets and falls romantically in love with the taciturn, moody, and often bad-tempered de Winter. When bo proposes marriage to her she can hardly believe her good fortune, but she gladly accepts'. For a few brief weeks she is wildly happy, but her happiness quickly fades when reality, in the shape of Manderley, comes between her and her husband. The young bride finds all too soon that, though rhe first Mrs. de Winter is dead —she died in a boating accident —her influence lives on and is evident in every turning of the great staircase, every furnishing in the great house. Mrs. Danvers. the housekeeper, who was devoted to the first wife, spares no time or pains in showing the second just how perfect her predecessor was. and the contrast between the two—the one poised, beautiful, witty and worldly wise the other timid, unsure of herself, retiring—is brought out in a wav which is all the more remarkable when it: is realized that the first woman never appears. ’l’he newcomer soon discovers that, no matter what Maxim might have thought of Rebecca, she bad been unfaithful to him. and part of her past returns to Manderley in the shape of Jack Faitvel (George Sanders). Fauvel. who has no diflicultv in sizing up the character of the now Mrs. de Winter, manages Io add to the sinister atmosphere of the house: and the bride, convinced by his actions and speech that her husband has never loved her and that the shadow of Rebecca will always stand between them as a bar to happiness, is on the point of leaving him when something happens which does away with the shade of Rebecca for ever and explains the reason for Maxim’s moods and sudden angers. Rebecca was not thi' only one to have an incident in her pnsi life that needed e,'ireful guarding— Maxim hud one loo; and it is how this secret is finally revealed and how it affected Rebecca and the second wife that: makes- this production one which I stands out sharply from the others. I