"THE DOVER ROAD"

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 67, 22 March 1929, Page 5

"THE DOVER ROAD"

RICH COMEDY, WELL PLAYED

A very marked improvement in tlio quality ot amateur work in the repertory theatre is noticeable in Wellington, and the standard of the last two or three pertormances is such as to deserve wider public attention. Last evening m the 1.W.0.A. Hall the National Kepertory Iheatrc Society produced Sir. .A. A. iUihio's "The Dover Road" to a crowded house, which was "entirely gripped by the play, so that its ready applause needed no stimulation. In the same hall was seen recently a Tchekov farce and a Jjieohs-Huuljard sea comedy, besides some Shakespeare, and when one remembers the other fine plays (Shi:ws, Millies, Galsworthys, etc.) performed by one organisation or the other, it lias to be admitted that the amateurs have become a force in Wellington so far as the legitimate stage is concerned, anil that through them the public are getting much that would otherwise be unattainable, as a glance at the National Kepertory Theatre Society's list will abundantly prove. "The Dover Hoad" is supposed to be the way taken by Kiiplish runaway couples to France, and in ]\[r. Milne's comedy may.be taken to signify elopement. A Mr. La timer uses his wealth to establish a house, a semi-hotel, into which he side-tracks eloping couples by means of bribing their chauffeurs, and in which he detains them for some days (forcibly, if necessary) in order to test the sincerity of their passion, before allowing them to proceed on their way (to France or back home). The semi-hotel is open to single elopers, but Latimer prefers to specialise in couples one or both of whom is married, his theory being that the man (or woman) running away from a first marriage which he has helped (consciously or unconsciously) to wreck is almost certain to choose badly a second time, and that this multiplication of unhappiness is to be avoided even if it means locking them up till they arc sick of the sight of each other, a result not difficult to produce if the environment is made provocative. One little trick is to put the man of the first night in a specially draught-equipped bedroom where he will catch a bad cold, so that thereafter he appears at his worst before the lady, on whom meanwhile Latimer lavishes sage counsel. Into this Romeotaming and Juliet-shaming establishment are drawn, by trickery, Anne and Leonard, also another eloping couple, Eustasia (Leonard's wife) and Nicholas. At first neither couple knows the other's identity, but when they do come together, Leonard's procured cold has become so bad that Eustasia is magnetised back to her husband's side; she is of the mothering type, and. as Leonard has never been ill before, his predicament gives her womanhood new scope. But alas, her attentions are over-done, and her excessive solicitude bores her husband Leonard just as it had previously enraged her lover Nicholas. Anne, who is much more acid in character, speedily has her eyes opened to Leonard's masculine selfishness, and turns to Nicholas, whom she asks to remain in the semi-hotel to do her a favour. It takes three days for her to bring her dignity into line with a specific intimation as to what the favour really is, and when it turns out to be nothing more romantic than a loan of twenty-two shillings and sixpence to pay Anne's homeward fare, Nicholas, who had expected something else, receives his final disillusionment. Ultimately, the two men decamp together to France on a purely masculine joy ride, leaving the two women to their own devices—Anne (loving Latimer for her rescue and hating him for his patronage) to return home, and Eustasia to invest her motherliness in nursing one of Latimor's sick servants. The two types of womanhood, richly contrasting, are well played by Miss Dorothy Hadlield (the over-attentive Eustnsia) and Miss Zita Chapman (the mentally penetrative Anne). But all hats must be raised to Mr. O. N. Gillespie. He made the queer part of that strange fellow Latimer run as naturally and as evenly i'.s a brook; lie was the perfect tyrant and the perfect friencl ; his intolerable interference with liberty was lost in his suavity and charm, and his recipe for acid-sweet-ness would be worth a lot of money if he could pass it on. It is also difficult to over-praise Mr. R. 13. Pope's Leonard, and in the much less loaded . part of

Nicholas Mr. Maurice James did all that was needed. Mr. Charles Ashford made a commanding Dominic (the heavy-weight butler), and the maids and the footmen were Misses Mary Preedy and Ngaire Coster and Messrs. John Bown and Jasper Baldwin. "The Dover Road" will be repeated to-night and to-morrow night. It is an intellectual treat, and should not be missed.