REGENT THEATRE

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 139, 8 March 1941, Page 15

REGENT THEATRE

As Henriette Deportes-Deluzy, governess in the household of the Due and Duchesse de Prasin in “All This and Heaven, Too,” well advanced into the third week of a season at the Regent Theatre, Bette Davis gives another of her incomparable performances. The duchess is a neurotic, possessive woman, almost insanely jealous of her husband, who has long outgrown his love for her. In the quiet governess the duke sees a respite from his life of argument and despair; his children soon come to love her; but his wife recognizes in her only ano.ther threat to her happiness.' The youngest child, the heir, falls ill, and Henriette, with the full consent of the duke, disobeys the doctor’s orders, treats the child in her own fashion, and he recovers. This puts her more into the duke’s-debt than ever, but his wife’s evil spirit seems to haunt the house, and an innocent word or meaningless glance exchanged by the governess and the duke is sufficient to bring forth a storm of tears, reproaches and hysteria. . This conduct, combined with his increasing love, unannounced and unacknowledged, but nevertheless understood by both, drives the already distraught man to madness. When a particularly spiteful act of his wife reduces the governess to penury, his self-con-trol snaps and he kills the woman who has made his life such a misery. Henriette is taken from her lodging and charged with complicity in the crime. In her trouble she is consoled by a shy, but devoted American, the Rev. Henry Field, who, when the turmoil has subsided and she is set free because of insufficient evidence, takes her to America and obtains a post for her in a girls’ school, where the audience leaves her looking forward to a future of peace and quiet happiness.