Shaw Play Withdrawn

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 17945, 24 November 1932, Page 9

Shaw Play Withdrawn

pEORGE Bernard Shaw’s most reU cent play, ‘"Too True to Be Good,” has been withdrawn from the New Theatre after a run of six weeks. Tho play had its premiere at the Malvern Festival, last summer and at that time was given a poor lccoptiou by dramatic critics. It was moved to the New Theatre here six weeks ago, ousting Shakespeare from - the position of opening the season. Its reception was unefithusiastie from the start. Critics to-day commented that Bernard Shaw lias had too much experience to allow any of his plays to die’ a natural death and suggested he remove it before it had become moribund.

“Too True to bo Good” failed to excite the American critics to enthusiasm—in fact, tho New York Times headed its review, “Shaw’s New Pla'y Tedious with Talk,” and comparing'the piece to vaudeville, said: “Like a full evening of vaudeville, much of it is dull, but some of it is lively in a style we have all relished ip the past,”* Tho Uoudw critics’

reviews were severely critical. “Mr. Shawls present work,” affirms the Times, “has as a document the interest, and as a play the tedium, of an undigested notebook. Being formless, it; produces neither dramatic illusion nor intellectual tension.. In that senso it is dull; but though without form, it is not void, for the alternate wisdom and childishness that give to the word ‘Shavian’' its meaning inform it all. and bv virtue of their in< ongruousness, grant, to it tho salvation, of style.” The Morning Post declared the play to be “a sort of non-stop dis-cussioii-cntertainnient, without structure, without cumulative dramatic force, without living creation,” and added, “Its characters, like its_thorti.es, are merely an assembly of jottings. It. could be started anywhere, and added to by the simple process of clapping on another length of talk. ’ ’ When the play opens, in (he rqom of a girl suffering from measles, it is speedily revealed to the audience that the night nurse and a curate who appears upon the scene are in league to steal the patient ’s pearl necklace, Hie curate' having' had his moral sense destroyed'bv the tllin'gs he was forced to do as-an' airman during the war. The I patient, .however, defends her property with a vigor that.cures her of measles and the curate of his taste for burglary. He then persuades her to steal her own necklace, share the'proceeds with him,( shako off invalidism,- and see life. The patient is next heard of as a captive in the hands of brigands, while an expedition is being fitted out to rescue, her.