POPULAR PLAY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23671, 1 December 1938, Page 7

POPULAR PLAY

ENTERS ON THIRD YEAR MADE £60,000 AT CRITERION "FRENCH WITHOUT TEARS" <From Ouh Own Correspondent) (By Air Mail) LONDON, Nov. 7. Most New Zealanders who have been in England during the past two seasons have been to the Criterion Theatre to see "French Without Tears." A good many have been mora than once. This play has begun its third unbroken run with its 833rd performance at the theatre in Piccadilly Circus. It has made more than £60,000 at the Criterion, it has been on tour, and has played for four months in New York. For its author, Terence Rattigan, it has earned over £25,000. This is his first play. He. has lately completed a second one. Eight actresses have at different times played Diana, the lead: Miss Kay Hammond for fourteen months. Miss Gertrude Musgrove for five months, Miss Avice Landone tor three months, and Miss Constance Carpenter, its present exponent, for two months. Miss Elizabeth Nolan and Miss Mavis Clair have occasionally deputised, Miss Phcebe Kershaw (a niece of Miss Ada Reeve) played it on tour, and Miss Penelope Dudley Ward in New York. CELEBRATING .A midnight-till-dawn party was held on Saturday-Sunday in the theatre. Almost every member of the casts who have played it in England and America was present at the party of 200 people. Guests included Frank Lawton, Evelyn Laye, Elizabeth Allan, Constance Carpenter, Constance Cummings, Jane Baxter, Anne Casson, Mackenzie Ward, and Kay Hammond COMEDIES OF YOUTH "'.'- What, asks Stephen Williams, critic of the Evening Standard, is the secret of this play's success? Its theme—the devastating effect of a charming breaker of hearts on the members of a French tutor's household—is, to say the least, not wildly original; the Sower of woman to distract man from is work is as old as Eden. There i 3 npthing profound or heart-searching in it, and its frothy, facile, flippant wit has aroused the anger of the sort of people who write to the papers asking what our young people are coming to. But—like "The Wind and the Rain' (Dr Merton Hodge)—it is a comedy of youth, and youth (even in its most Irritating aspects) has apparently an eternal fascination for the playgoer. Mr Rattigan announces that in his next play .he will be serious. His characters i /include some of the "bright young things" of the early nineteen-twenties\drlfting into middle age and being looked on with wonder and disgust by the sober and earnest young men and women of to-day.