“THE LADY WITH A LAMP.”

Otago Witness, Issue 3912, 5 March 1929, Page 17

“THE LADY WITH A LAMP.”

REGINALD BERKELEY’S BEST PLAY.

STORY OF FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE.

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

, LONDON. January 10. Mr Reginald Berkeley, whom one may clam as a New Zealander, has accomplished his best work in the new play, “ The Lady with a Lamp.” He first came into prominence as the author of French - Leave.” Later. “The White Chateau, at first as a broadcast play and then on the stage, attracted great attention. . “Mr Abdullah ” had a short run, and is still doing well as the successful musical comedy, “ Lucky Girl ” Then Mr Berkeley gained publicity as the author of the scenario of the mueb-dis-cussed “Nurse Cavell” film. Now his Florence Nightingale play has received very great praise from the critics. “The Lady with a Lamp” has been running at the Arts Theatre Club for about 10 days, but it is more than likely that it will be transferred to some larger theatre where the general public may have the privilege of seeing it. The playwright has based his play on one or two important points in the life of. Florence Nigthingale. He maintains that the popular belief that she was never in love is quite erroneous. She deliberately sacrificed her . inclinations, rig.lly suppressing her physical nature, in order to be unfettered for her work This nun-like asceticism, it is said, bred a ruthless disregard for the disabilities of other people and of herself, and when her shadow fell across the life of Sidney Herbert—one of the most brilliant of the younger statesmen of the early Victorian times—she drove him, through successive stages of ill-health and overwork, to an early death. Despite the affection and reverence that she inspired among all classes and in all lands, official recognition was long withheld because she was a woman. It came when she was blind and deaf and was losing her mental faculties. We see Florence Nightingale first of all as a girl at Embley Park, Hampshire, among her own people, who naturally pour contempt on her small efforts at nursin<*. To Lord Palmerston and to B;dnev Herbert she declares her mission, and both are sympathetic and encourage her. The author provides for her a rich and ardent lover, Henry Tremayne, but Florence resists his protestations, although she admits that she loves him. Years later Tremayne. still constant in his affection, joins the army, and appears again as a wounded corporal at the Scutari Hospital. He dies in Miss Nightingale’s arms. This is the romantic incident of the play. It is well done and not obtrusive. THE YEARS OF WORK. Six years later we see Florence Nightingale managing the ladies’ committee of a hospital. In the interval she has been carrying out Lord Palmerston’s advice to prepare herself. In the same chamber in Harley street Lord Palmerston and Sidney Herbert act as the Government deputation to ask her to organise a hospital for the Crimea. Only one scene we have of the Scutari Hospital. The magnitude of her task at the base can only be indicated by her combats with and victories over t>? Government officials. Back in London in 1861 we find Miss Nightingale fighting untiringly with the Government for army and hospital reform in India and elsewhere. At this time, too, is enacted the pathetic duel between Lady Herbert and Florence Nightingale. The former, to save her husband’s life, persuades him to resign from the Government and seek health on the Continent —the greatest blow Florence Nightingale has had in the course of her work. In a later scene, Lady Herbert comes in to announce the death of her husband. v

The story is taken up through the years to 1886, when Florence Nightingale, a woman of 66, is still working, and is evidently powerful enough to refuse an interview, even to Mr Gladstone, who has come without an appointment. Finally, the play is brought to a close by a scene pathetic and ironical in its tone. We see the old lady of 87 in a wheeled chair, blind and helpless, receiving the Order of Merit, the freedom of the City of London, and a tribute from the German Emperor. She knows nothing of what the gorgeous Court officials are doing and saying. All she can murmur is, “ Too kind! Too kind! ”

The chief part is taken by Miss Edith Evan?, and it is considered that seldom has this accomplished actress had such an opportunity of displaying her ability, AN EXQUISITE PLAY.

‘ This exquisite play,” is what the critic of the Sunday Observer says of the work. I shall be painfully surprised,” he goes on to say, “ if it is not hurriedly transferred to a public playhouse. It is Mr Berkeley’s best piece by far, and it affords Miss Edith Evans her best part outside the range of artificial comedy. This, indeed, is her Saint Joan, a Saint Joan of sanitation, whose girlhood’s voices give one clear call to drains. Like the Shavian Joan, this Florence is the devotee of common sense, the quiet assassin of bogus ideals (in this case the womanly woman and the great man), and the furious practitioner of work’s hot gospel. Miss Evans brings to the part a steely simplicity, her steel being botn the glittering magnet of personality and the blade that cuts away the jungles of obstruction and red tape.” The critic concludes by referring to Miss Evans. “ And now Mr Berkeley has written her a part and a play which it would be monstrous to give only for a private view.” A LIVING WOMAN. The Daily Telegraph says:—“Mr Reginald Berkeley is the . latest of these seekers after truth. Led, perhaps, by Mr Lytton Strachey, he has ventured into the cloud surrounding ‘ The Lady With a Lamp,’ to see if he can find Florence Nightingale for us; and, having found her, he has written about het his best play. “I was brought up on the legend of Florence Nightingale, and accepted it. Mention of her name conjured up in my

imagination a vague picture of a .voman going round a hospital ward with a lamp in her hand and a heavenly (if rather fatuous) smile on her face, pausing here and there to lay a cool hand on a fevered brow.

But Mr Strachey’s book, and now Mr Berkeley s play, have substituted for that Christmas card angel a figure which major not be the real Florence Nightingale, but is at any rate a living woman—a woman whom it is possible to understand and to admire whole-heartedly; a weman who, before she was able to c-irrv her lamp through her wards, ha#l fought a series of pitched battles with her parents, with overbearing authorities, with muddle incompetence, jealousy, and prejudice; a voman who could, and did, make herself snnr°M g l tO °PP onents *nd a galling spur to her colleagues—in short, a great woman with the defects of her qualities; and no mere bloodless myth.” ’ ■'