Clemence Dane Writes New Play

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 690, 15 June 1929, Page 24

Clemence Dane Writes New Play

ACTING THAT WILL LIVE Clemence Dane, a dauntless as well as a thoughtful writer, kills off tile two chief characters with one act still to go in her new play, “Mariners.” at Wyndham's Theatre, writes a London critics. It left the last act weak—the only weakness in a beautifully written, heart-rending play that might have been another ‘‘Many Waters.” It is Miss Dane’s best work since "The Bill of Divorcement.” The whole village loves its saintlike rector. Because he is such a saint they pretend to believe the little man’s pathetic equivocations about his wife’s bad health. They know that she, an innkeeper’s shrewdish daughter, whom he had married in his college days, has handicapped his whole career. His home life is a hell on earth — we see it for ourselves. And yet Lily loves him. That is the tragedy. She cannot help being embittered by her own inferiority. Lewis Casson gave a faultless rendering of the saintly cleric, acting that should live in the memory of all who see it. Sybil Thorndike, as the selftortured wife. Louise Hampton, a “spinster of this parish,” and muchimproved Alison Leggatt, as an unsentimental modern with her own problems to face, were excellent. So, too, was diminutive Ann, a very junior member of the Casson family. Before sailing from Southampton for South Africa with members of his company, George Robey said he had been offered a £150,000 contract to appear in American talking pictures for 18 months. “It is very probable that I shall accept,” he said, “for I think that 1 have the face as well as the voice for the films.” The £150,000 is believed to be a record for any “talkie” film actor. Mr. Robey, who is 59, has not yet appeared in a film.