ALLAN WILKIE'S. RETURN

Evening Star, Issue 17366, 31 May 1920, Page 4

ALLAN WILKIE'S. RETURN

‘LUCK OF THE NAVY.’ The great size and evident engrossment of the .Saturday night audience assembled in His Majesty’s Theatre to witness the new war drama ‘The Luck of the Navv ’ effectively demonstrated that, far from being a special and evanescent phase of war fever, the German spy motif is capable ’of considerable prolongation into this period of post-hostility adjustments, though outside the walls of the theatre its motivation has been replaced by a bristling crop of new hatreds, industrial and social. Mr Allan Wilkie’s play invades no new territory. It is blood relation to ‘The Man Who Staved at Home’ and * Seven Days’ Leave,’ the latter, indeed, being its true progenitor, though in externals—manner, drawing room setting,, and subordination of obvious heroics—it more resembles the former. All its involutions would be recollected from these two pieces, even if they could not he foreseen from its first act, which adumbrates the entire story. It is therefore a play of excitement rather than surprises, tbs interest depending upon the superstructure of situation. This is built with such considerable suspensive skill that, while tho second act is swift and binding enough to satisfy the most hardened palate, the third and final act furnishes the authentic, thrills, the action, indeed, retaining its momentum right up to the- irruption of the amazing galaxy of bluejackets. Only a- short minute elapses between this denouement and the fall of the curtain upon tho subordinate climax of sentiment. Plot characters and treatment closely parallel those of ‘Seven Days’ Leave’— up to a certain point. In that pice? (if memory serves) the hero was a naval oliicer who was to be kidnapped in a U boat; in this he is the commander of a British submarine that has done extensive execu lion among the. German fleet units, and tho orders of the All Highest are that he is to be removed to Berlin bv aeroplane after the capture and decoding of tho secret orders he carries for an impending stunt.” Common to both plays, also. is tho German agent posing ns a wounded Belgian officer; but the new play vitally differs from its predecessor in locating the centre of spy activities in an aggressively English famil". bearing an honored name for almost fanatical patriotism, with its heir actually in the British Navy and 1 privy to its movements. The atmosphere of deceit and raucous hatred in this dangerous household is limned with great skill and force. The vital act* of the play take place in it, and the characters have telling verisimilitude —Mrs Gordon Peel, concealing the almost hallucinated spleen of the Him under the cloak of an hysterical jingo patriotism ; her son Louis (Ludvig) Peel, H.N. ; her servant, Francois, a squat and typical Boche, camouflaged as a Swiss; her maid-companion, Anna; and the super spy, Schaffer, posing ns a Belgian colonel. It is in this household of silent, deadly inquisition that Lieutenant Clive Stanton is trapped, and plays out tire game of plot and counter-plot with British forthrightness and luck, turning tho final trick successfully and sensationally on the very brink of disaster.

The piece was played with good judgment and deftness. In the character of Stanton the author has avoided anything approaching fustian or windy apotheosis cf duty, and Mr Wilkie handled the role with crisp, almost casual, simplicity and nonchalance) and with plenty of humorous shading. Miss Frediswyde 'Hunter-'Watts as the English sweetheart, Cynthia Edc-n, had a part that made small demands emotionally, but provided a pleasing sentimental gloss to the situation. Mrs Gordon Peel is tile outstanding figure on the feminine side of the cast, and Miss Helen Fergus limned her " sur le vif.” The transformation from the placid, motherly Englishwoman of the first act to the bristling, venomous German of the-last act confrontation had the fidelity and spontaneity of the Jckvll-Hydo metamorphosis. It was' authentic, sure histrionic work. Mr Augustus Neville delineated capably the son, Louis, a palo and rather timorous reflection, of his mother’s triplebrassed hatred. Mr Felix Bland as the servant, Mr J. Castle Morris as the spy, Miss Ngaio Marsh, as the companion were all more than adequate. The lighter angle of the situation is developed by three characters, each of whom, after the" fashion of melodrama, has a finger in the precipitation of the crisis. Thus it is the inquisitiveness of the voluble old retired admiral, Muybridge, that throws the first suspicion of secrecy, and doubt upon the Peel household ; it is the pert flapper, Dora Green, whose exercise of hero worship gives first due to the spies of Stanton’s disposition of his papers; and IF is the boyish persistence of Midshipman Eden in haunting the Peel household for a sight of the flapper that gives Stanton a confederate in his hour of need. These characters were played with great vivacity and humor by Mr Edward Landor (the admiral), liiss Vera St. John (the flapper), and Mr R. A. Long (the midshipman). Other capable people were engaged in minor characterisations. ‘The Luck of the Navy’ will be played this and every evening, and there will" be t matinees on Thursday amfe Saturday,