"She Too Was Young"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23145, 17 September 1938, Page 20 (Supplement)

"She Too Was Young"

STORY OF THE 'SEVENTIES [from our own correspondent] LONDON. August 29' A distinguished and discriminating theatre-going audience left Wyndham's on Tuesday night convinced that they had seen a good play, perfectly cast, well acted, well directed and richly dressed in the fashions of the 'seventies —silks standing alone, rich velvets and taffetas, well-managed bustles and tiny hats. "She, Too, Was Young" is a sentimental play of the 'seventies by Hilda Vaughan and Laurier Lister. A very much impoverished family, resident in a country house in Wales, consisting of Mr. and Mrs Treowain (Edmund Gwenn and Mane JSey), tne latter's aged mother (Katie Johnson) and two attractive step-sisters, one, Kate, the daughter of Mr. Treowam (played bv Ann Todd), the other, Rose, the daughter of Mrs. Treowam (play e <J by Dorothy Hyson). The elder, hard by nature, is mortally jealous of the younger, feeling herself the Cinderella. Lovo element is introduced through the persons of Harry Lestrange (Barry Sinclair), a poor army officer dependant on an uncle; a corsetted caricature of an elderly fop, who is always making puns, Sir Eustace Lestrange (Esme Percy), and the family doctor, Evan Jones (Alan Webb). But the course of true love does not run smoothly, mainly because the overfond, carefully calculating and managing wife desires that her lovely daughter shall marry someone of means and not the penniless subaltern. She, too, had been young, and married life had not gone well. So, for two years, she burns letters, incoming and outgoing, in her scheme that Rose shall marry the doctor who has inherited money, and who now has a lucrative practice. In the last act, this wedding is about to take place, everyone ready for tne church, including the beautiful bride when to the surprise of all except Kate the soldier from India turns up. llose does not marry the doctor, who learns the truth about intercepted letters, but she does marry Harry. There are several powerful scenes, but none more so than the one where the mother is forced by her husband to confess that she has intercepted letters and destroyed them, and Rose learns of what has happened. The hnal triumph is hers because her mother has failed.