“The Women”

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 88, 15 April 1939, Page 3

“The Women”

CLARE BOOTHE’S MUCHDISCUSSED PLAY CLEVER, WITTY AND HIGHLY AMUSING Clare Boothe’s much-discussed play, “The Women,’’ is a clever, witty and highly-amusing comedy, with woman’s education by her female confidantes in the facts of life as applied to the married state in the smart set as its theme. The play will be presented in Palmerston North on Thursday and Friday, April 27 and 28. A mordant exposo of the mischief wrought by scandalous tongues, “The Women” is a cleverly compacted setting of a series of facets of the modern young wife’s experiences and indulgences, to form a sparkling comedy with a background of philosophy. Known types and favourite cliches of the smart set are brought into cunning contrast to tell the story with force and dramatic effect. Entailing perfect team work by a cast of over forty players, and nine different scenes, in which each set is a feature of calculated effect, tho technical production itself by Ernest C. Rolls is one of the most noteworthy of its kind.

Bristling with character studies, as with unusual settings that range from bathroom and bedroom to beauty parlour scenes, “The Women” distributes its appeal over a great field, but the histrionic burden falls on six or seven of the large cast. Irene Purcell, as a married woman forced into divorce by scandalous friends, but. retrieving husband and happiness from the ruins, convincingly catches ana Holds the sympathy of her audience. Varying types of mischievous married friends, with private inquiry proclivities and tabbycat habits, are faithfully portrayed with side-splitting results by Marjorie Crossland, Christine Maple and Jessica Rogers. Doris Packer very ably brushes in a caustic cynical spinster touch. As maidens making the best of their youth at the expense of other women’s wealthy husbands, Mary Dees and Debby Dare point the moral and adorn the tale with contrast character work, each highly expressive. In child scenes, ranging from nursery discipline to the emotional highlights inseparable from divorce, little Dorothea Dunstan shows surprising tale**f. Indeed, the need for diversity of characters is ably met by cameo portrayals that happily carry tho lines in a score of different facets. None of these illuminating asides are more effective than those provided in the philosophy thrown in by Katie Towers’ cook and Leal Douglas’ fealty to her red-headed tyrant.