LONDON AMUSEMENTS

Evening Star, Issue 19020, 15 August 1925, Page 15

LONDON AMUSEMENTS

DMA AND OPERA THRILLS

London playgoers are experiencing a series of theatrical thrills, _ practically all of foreign origin, and fairly' divided between drama and opera (writes the ‘Argus’ correspondent, dune 2b). It would have been pleasant to chronicle the success of original work by Untons, but candor forbids the claim. It is to the Italian opera season at Corent Garden and the plays of tho Italian, Pirandello, that London playgoers are flocking in search of tho “shiver” which they fall to find in current English and American production. Ido not suppose the Pirandello season at tho Kew Oxford Theatre is coining money as quickly’ ns, say’, the comic opera", ‘ Marie Rose,’ at Drnry Lane, where the takings in a single week were £5,958. But intellectuals have found an unexpected thrill in Pirandello and are duly grateful. It may be some time before the Pirandello plays reach Melbourne, but they arc available in book form, and, in the meantime, Australians will be content to road them. What Ibsen was in 1890, Pirandello may bo in 1925. _ For the rest London has boon revelling in a remarkable series of young sopranos, headed by an Australian favorite, Toti dal Monte, and that astonishing act-ress-singer, the lovelv Joritza. Altogether, very choice faro for a single fortnight, even though that fortnight happens ro coincide with the height of tho London season,

" IN SEARCH OF AN AUTHOR.”

London owes tho Pirandello season to Mr Charles Cochran, who, thanks to the revue, ' On With the Dance,’ seems likely to escaxio from recent financial difficulties. Mr Cochran opened his season with the oddly-named

‘ Sis Characters in Search of an Author.’ Sir Barry Jackson, of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, had proposed to produce this play in English, but the Lord Chamberlain intervened, though he lias permitted Mr Cochran to produce an tmexpurgated version hi Italian. ‘ Six Characters 1 is described as “a comedy in the making.” and the curtain rises upon a hair-empty stage, whore a manager is about to rehearse an earlier play by Pirandello. A number of characters, half-formed psychological entities, however, force their way over the footlights and demand permission to work out their destinies in dramatic form, and so a new play begins. The reaction of the halfformed characters upon the manager, the actors, and upon each other makes up a strangely original fantasy of terror, humor, and cynicism, and, incidentally, shows that Pirandello is a master of stagecraft. Very amusing is the argument between the manager and the characters concerning the reality of the events. Whereas Ibsen and Straw widened the scope of drama by introducing politics and economics, Pirandello "adds metaphysics. When one of the characters asks “What is right?” another of the characters retorts “What is real?” and so the play becomes a treatise upon the moot problems of appearance and reality. This sounds utterly undrarnatic and ever boring, but in Pirandello’s hands_ it proves to he absorbingly interesting, .and provides opportunities for_ many whimsical and fantastic happenings. “ NAKED.” Another of Pirandello’s plays, ‘ Naked,’ is concerned with the efforts of an unfortunate girl to cover the bareness of her sordid Hfo, and, like the ‘ Six Characters, ’ is essentially an experiment in psychological drama. It gives wonderful opportunities for acting to Signorina Marta Abba, the leading lady of the company. This time Pirandello imagines a novelist who brings to his chambers Ersilia Droi, _a destitute governess, who lias been in hospital alter an attempt to commit suieido. He determines to put the girl in his next book, but as the scheme evolves she is troubled because the character in the novel is not her real self. Always Pirandello is obsessed with the contrast between appearance and reality. She tells the novelist with a. weal ih of del ail that she was a, governess in the house of an Italian Consul, and was dismissed because the child in her charge had been killed by fading from a roof. Laspiga, a young naval ollieer, deceived her, and when she returned to Rome in penniless disgrace she found him betrothed to another girl. Hence the suicide, and the novelist proceeds to embody the details in his plot. But the girl is lying. A reporter arrives and denies part of tho story, and then tho young naval officer comes, in a state of maudlin penitence, and offers to marry Ersilia, thus stripping Ersilia of the uppermost of her romantic rags. But she refuses to marry the young officer, and it is plain that there are other complications. These are rovoalcd when tho consul turns up, and proves to have been her lover. In the last act Ersilia poisons herself after confessing that at first she wanted “a good dress to die in,” so that her fate might stir pity, but now she chooses to die without a single lie to cover her nakedness. “Wo ah of us want to make n. good impression,” she sobs, “ the worse we arc, the uglier we are, the more anxious wo are to appear good and beautiful. I wanted at least to bo buried in decent clothes. That’s why T lied! But no! I must die naked! I must die discovered, despised. humiliated, found out.” NIGHTMARE DRAMA.

Obviously this is highly _ original work, and, equally obvious, it can bo maclo interesting in tho hands of a master of fantastic art. But it is to_ bo hoped that all our younger dramatists will not bo tempted to essays in the Pirandello manner. I any this because there are hints that "nightmare drama,” may become a craze among young English and American dramatists. Thus London has recently witnessed a curious play called ‘ Beggar on Horseback,’ which was labelled “expressionist ” drama, and professed to suggest “the strange, irregular rhythm of life,” A penniless composer dreams of union with a dollar princess, and in the play tho characters of the dream come to life. We see the marriage and, finally, the penniless coinposer murdering bis wealthy father-in-law and standing his trial tor the crime. There are many other odd scenes in this nightmavGflrama, including a pantomime, ‘A Kiss in Zanadu,‘ which owes something to the ballet ‘Smnunm.’ More in the classical tradition is ‘ The Man .With a Bead of Mischief,’ which is enjoying a run nt the Haymarkct. This is hy Mr Ashley Dukes, and is a beautifully written comedy of tho Uegency period. A lady of quality comes to a village inn and finds in a servant all that she missed in Society—with a capital S. As her royal lover enters the inn, the lady of quality elopes with tho servant. Miss Ear Compton and Mr Leon Qnarteruuvine are excellent as tlie lovers. _ Lastly, Tchebov’s ' Cherry Orchard ’ is being played by the Lyric Theatre Company from Hammersmith, and the is vet another play of considerable originality, ns those who have read Tchehow’s story will guess. On the whole, it is many months since London playgoers had" such a. feast of novel dramatic forms. Perhaps none of the products are masterpieces, hut, together, they show that world dramatists are moving towards some new thing.