"THEY WALK ALONE"

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 107, 1 November 1940, Page 10

"THEY WALK ALONE"

THESPIAN PRODUCTION

As long as there is a marKet ror horrors on film, stage, and in literature the demand will be met. People willing to put down good money in order to have icy currents sent down their spines and their hair made to stand upright, their heart-beats checked with terrors can be sure of getting what they ask for, or at any rate an article just as good. The Thespian players met the market last night at the Town Hall when they offered "They Walk Alone." The play is by Max Catto; it had a six months' run in London, and was there offered as "a thriller." There must have been something gripping on the' ear and eye of the playgoer to account for so long a run in London. The choice of this play by the Thespians appeared to be fully justified by its reception last night. Whether it really thrilled each and every person present or the large majority of them is difficult to say, but during many moments in the play there were titterings and half-suppressed giggling that in audiences often indicate, not mirth, but hysteria. The story of the play is spun around a domestic servant girl from Cornwall, who enters the household of a Lincolnshire farmer. She is suspected by the audience, on her first appearance, to be something far different from what she pretends to be. In her spoken thoughts, her incautious admissions, and extorted confessions her pathetic history is unfolded like a roll of stuff of queer pattern and texture. As the play proceeds the girl stands out as a clear case for the specialist in mental diseases, cases of the kind within the experience of judges and magistrates. The poor thing in other days would have been said to be "possessed of an evil spirit." How she managed to charm and murder so many young men in so short a time without detection was a problem the audience was left to solve for itself. The subject of the play was it seemed less suited for the stage than for recording in the pages of "The Lancet." But the acting of the principal part of Emmy Baudine, the domestic servant who brought death and trouble into a Lincolnshire household, was exceptionally good. The part'was allotted to Iris Wright. From the moment she came on to the stage to her wild exit at the close she held the audience spellbound. She spoke every word with deliberation and audibly and whatever she said told. In her mouth and with the mouths of some of the other characters some frank and far from agreeable words were put by the writer of the play. Iris Wright's performance stood out like a neon sign in a dull street, outshining the rest of the cast. But as Bess Stanforth, the j farmer's wife who was prejudiced by intuition against the girl from the outset, Constance Kelly gave a dramatic and convincing portrayal of her part. She exploited to the full a woman's intuition and dislike, and when it came to lively action as well as high words she was prompt to respond. The male characters have little to do in this play except as to some of them, the fatal victims of . Emmy's mania. Julie Tallent, sister to Bess, was played with humour and spirit by Sonia Charters. Parts in the rest of the cast were capably filled by George Boyle and Bob Stanforth, husband to Bess; by Glyn Tucker and Robert [Cheyne, victims of Emmy; and by G. H. Bassant as Farmer Tallent, who amused the audience by fussiness and pomposity incidental to the part. Stage effects such as a howling dog, weird strains of a church organ, and thunder and lightning were employed with success to intensify the eeriness of the story and acting of the play. "They Walk Alone" will be repeated this and tomorrow evenings.