ONLY FOUR PERFORMANCES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22670, 6 March 1937, Page 5 (Supplement)

ONLY FOUR PERFORMANCES

MERTON HODGE PLAY FAILS -ORCHARD WALLS" WITHDRAWN [fuom our own* cokkespondent] LONDON. Feb. 10 None of the first night critics held out much hope of "The Orchard Walls" enjoying a run. It went for four performances and then had to bo withdrawn. Considerable space was given by all the newspapers to this adaptation by Dr. Morton Hodge of Ladislaus Pordor's Hungarian play. But quite tho most pithy and most directly to the point proved to bo the remark by. Mr. Ivor Brown, in the Observer: "My experience is that adapting Hungarian plays for tho London stage is risky. What floats on the Danube often sinks on tho Thames; the Hungarian's taste is for more artificial stories, situations and performance ; their nights are gaudier." Mr. James Agate, in the Sunday Times, wrote: "The play is so wilfully and defiantly bad that it is worth while explaining why. ... If plays as bad as this run a year or' two, why, then, farewell to plavwriting as an art for the theatre, and hail the advent of tho straggling strip of cinema-fodder I . . . If the younger generation of actresses think'that they are ever going to approach within 40,000 miles of Miss Irene Vanbrugh they are mistaken. They have not mastered the rudiments of any one of tho eight or ten arts of acting of which Miss Vanbrugh is the complete mistress —wit, charm, poise, manner, gait, repose, enunciation and vis comica. To watch this brilliant artist make bricks out of straw was a complete lesson in acting. Mr. Arthur Sinclair had the even more difficult task of making straw out of nothing at all. A bomb would not have blown up this plav more effectively than one single intonation of this great comedian, who needs an O'Casey to stand up to him. The play was rapturously received by an immensely smart house. But 1- know ruder audiences whereby the more than talented players must have shaken tho yolk of inauspicious eggs from their playwearied flesh."

Anticipation had boon very keen, for anything from the pen of Dr. Hodge is looked for with interest in theatreland.

After its failure at the St. James' the announcement is now made that "Tho Orchard Walls" was done in America, in 1.935 as "Love Is Not So Simple," which is a translation of tho Hungarian title. The version was mado bv Philip Moeller, and tho loading parts taken by Jna Claire and Dennis King. It was a Theatre Guild production; it opened out of town and failed even to reach New York.

FILMS AND THE THEATRE OPINION OF A PLAYWRIGHT The question whether the films wero killing the theatre was discussed by Jt. C. Sherriff, of "Journey's End" fume, when speaking to the Oxford University Liberal Club recently. That night, ho 6aid, 20 curtains were going up at 2U London theatres and probably at only live of thorn would enough money* be taken to pn.v salaries. "The theatre is in a deplorable state," added j\lr. Sherriff, "and the question is, can the theatre survive the films? If it cannot and the films kill the theatre, can tl)e films supply the need of to-day? 1 think it is obvious that the films cannot." There was no man or woman living who had made his or her name as a •screen writer; the attraction was always the star in the film, and it will be the same until this extraordinary puzzle gets unravelled. The problem was that the screen was slowly killing the theatre. Actors could only learn their art on the stage, so the film business was killing the goose that laid the golden egg.