SHAW’S NEW PLAY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 205, 31 August 1932, Page 7

SHAW’S NEW PLAY

“HIS MADDEST MOOD.” COMMENT OF THE CRITICS. LONDON, Aug. 9. Bernard Shaw’s new play, “Too True To Be Good,” has met with varied criticism, one newspaper declaring it to be fantastic, and presenting “Shaw’s maddest mood.” Several' critics journeyed by air to attend a performance of the plf/y at the Malvern festival. Their late arrival delayed the opening and irritated the audience. The Observer says that thc play is a collection of sermons and whimsical interludes reviewing the dilemma of the world, which had lost its old and found no fresh dreams since the war had stripped it of its Victorian ..wrappings and left souls in rags. Shaw arraigns modern negativity, and rebukes the age for accepting his derisive philosophy and neglecting a constructive programme. The Sunday Times, while declaring that the play presented “Shaw’s maddest mood,” adds that it is often a sane and wise mirror of the post-war world, opening ns a crook play and ending as a sermon. The Referee says that the play is too true to be Shaw, and quotes a bright, young spectator’s comment, “It’s too bad to he good drama.” The play concerns two impossible young criminals who persuade a conventional girl to embark on an adventurous life and indulge in a good time, paralleling good times of the war vears.