“DANGEROUS CORNER”

Wanganui Chronicle, 7 March 1947, Page 6

“DANGEROUS CORNER”

BY J. B. PRIESTLEY REVIEWED BY H.C.J. Cast of Characters. Olwen. Peel Kathleen Robinson Freda Caplan Daphne Winslow Betty Whitehouse Jessica Noacl Miss Mockridge Minnie Love Charles Stanton Richard Parry Gordon Whitehouse Gordon Charter Robert Caplan Rod Douglas The play opens with a ''house party cnjoying~the evening hour. The womefifolk are in the sitting room listening to the riadio play in which a shot is fired and a man is killed. This as the men return prompts a conversation about telling the truth which is described by Charles Stanton as dangerous as turning a corner at sixty. The subsequent action reveals what would have happened had the dangerous corner not been negotiated in the way 'that it was. The actual happening is provided by what might be termed the switchback or the epilogue. The play is well knit, opening up gradually with Robert Caplin, a hollow simpleton, pursuing an enquiry into the death of his brother- He “asks for it” and gets it in full measure; but in the process everyone in the company except Miss Mockridge, the author, who drops a hot brick by inquiring what caused Martin Caplin to shoot himself, also finds hinror herself in a fix.

The play is also commendable in that it provides all members of the cast with a good opportunity to reveal their talents and this the seven players do with credit to themselves. But the production does not solely depend upon the individual efforts only, the team is a compact one, there is crispness in the procedure, there are no delays and the play passes quickly as it should do for it is a revelation not of action, but what might have occurred as contemplated by each member of the family. The business being well distributed it is difficult to say which is the leading character. If anything it is Robert Caplin who makes the movement, but it is Carles Stanton that keeps the play together. Robert is played as a character devoid of subtlety by Rod Douglas, while Charles is all subtlety and Richard Parry leaves his audience guessing as to what is to be found at the bottom of the well of Stanton's character. Kathleen Robinson as Olwen Peel has to carry a part that is consistently dramatic and to aid her in this she exercised a nice appreciation of the value of appropriate posings. Indeed the placings of the players has been given a great deal of thought in the sequence of scenes, these groupings being very effective throughout. Daphne Winslow’s Freda Caplin was a splendid combination of commonsense combined with a streak of nastiness. It was a complex character and made considerable demands upon the actor. The part of Gordon Whitehouse required delicate handling as much more was implied than spoken. Gordon Chafer's presentation was consistently good especially in its restraint- It was a part that could have been easily overplayed. The part of the girl wife, Betty Whitehouse, was too sweet and inconsequential to last throughout the play and the audience was thereby notice to expect a dramatic scene for Betty. Jessica Noad was called upon to move from ingenuousness to a elf revelatory scene which was very difficult and hers was probably the highlight of the play in ils intensity and sincerity. It was in the repetitive finale that Minnie Love’s experience revealed itself to advantage. Thcentre of the stage once a.’yiin is hers since the opening and she lakes it with a freshness that robs repetition of sameness and enables the whole of the company to act. convincingly, what, did actually occtir in that homo where the dangerous corner was successfully negotiated.