SHAW’S NEW PLAY

Evening Star, Issue 21193, 29 August 1932, Page 12

SHAW’S NEW PLAY

LONDON, August 19. Bernard Shaw’s new play, ‘ Too True To Be Good,’ lias met with varied criticism, one newspaper declaring it to be fantastic and presenting “ Shaw’s maddest mood.”

Several critics journeyed by air liner attend a performance of the play at Malvern festival. Their late arrival delayed the opening and irritated the audience.

The ‘ Observer ’ says that the play is a collection of sermons and whimiscal interlude, reviewing the dilemma of the world, which has lost its old and found no fresh dreams since the war had stripped it of its Victorian wrappings and left souls in rags. Shaw arraigns modern negativity and rebukes the age for accepting his derisive philosophy and neglecting a constructive programme. The 4 Sunday Times,’ while declaring that the play presented “ Shaw’s maddest mood,” adds that it is often a sane and wise mirror of the post-war world, opening as a crook play and ending as a sermon.

The ‘ lleferee ’ .says that the play is too true to he Shaw, and quotes a bright young spectator’s comment : ■lt’s too bad to he good drama.” The play concerns two impossible young criminals who persuade a conventional girl-to embark on an adventurous life and indulge in a good time, paralleling the good times of the war years.