REPERTORY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 90, Issue 85, 12 April 1946, Page 3

REPERTORY

“ELIZA COMES TO STAY’’ POOR COMEDY AND MANY LAUGHS (By H.C.J.) "Eliza Comes to Stay’’ reminds one of Pygmalion, but it is a weak reminder. H. V. Esmond was, indeed, fortunate to have his play produced, for there is so little in it. The Hon. Sandy Verrail, an impractical person, as belits a bachelor on £7OO a year, undertakes the charge of Eliza, whom he pictures as a gold-en-haired, blue-eyed baby, but who turns out to be a vulgar, clumsy gir’ so near to womanhood that it doesn’t matter. Sandy bolts for the Continent: his friend, Montague Jordan, who collects birds’ eggs, falls in love with her, and Sandy Verrall's sister helps on the prospective marriage in order

to save Sandy. The author helps nobody with their lines. The only convincing part is that of Monty, which Bruce Reid played exceedingly well. But it had a singular effect; it was so similar to the role of Sandy that Neville James shifted his interpretation after the first act to the role of a man-about-town, which didn’t fit in with any plausible story. Sandy’s part as a matchmaker was too direct to give Irene Rayner any opportunity for good acting, which left in the air the character of Eliza as the young woman with insight. Judith Burnett, as Eliza, did have opportunities of which she made much as the part progressed, but her first entrance was more in the nature of burlesque than of comedy. Katrine Pettigrew as Vera Lawrence, the actress intent upon marrying money, was charming where sne might with better stagecraft have been obnoxious in her go-getting, but the temptation was great to be the one pleasant person on the stage. Despite the deficiencies of the play, which imposed handicaps on each and every one of the actors, the audience.

enjoyed the performance. The laughs came frequently, but they were laughs of the cinema which burst out at any interval from sudden death to Sunday morning breakfast. It cannot be said that there was much discrimination shown in these responses, because the opportunity to discriminate between situations was not presented. There is no subtlety in the play. Eliza is the only role which has vigour, and that was at first overdone, there being nothing in the surroundings to support it. More miming might have improved the play, but how that could be achieved is not easy to divine. It would require exceedingly experienced stagecraft with a touch of genius to save this play from its own inadequacies. Herbert, the butler, was no support, nor was Mrs. Alloway, and consequently Guy Curtiss and Jessie Neilson were denied opportunities with which a good playwright would have provided them. The production went along smoothly without hindrance; it was blessed by efficient, management, for which the producers, Edith Gilbert and Eileen Warnock, and the stage manager, Lionel Gillman, are to be congratulated.