BEAUTIFUL PLAY.

Waikato Times, Volume 109, Issue 18342, 30 May 1931, Page 17 (Supplement)

BEAUTIFUL PLAY.

BY LONDON WOMAN. PERFECT PART FOR FAY COMPTON Alan Parsons writes in the London Daily MailLike all dramatic critics, I am asked twice a week, “Do you not get terribly tired of the theatre?” It Is plays like “Autumn Crocus,” which Mr Basil Dean produced last night at the Lyric Theatre, which ensure that the answer shall always he “No." I have not been so deeply moved In the theatre for many long months, yet so delicate, so elusive, so insubstanial is this lovely little idyll that I despuair of trying to praise it—l can only beg playgoers to see for themselves. \ For what is this tale, after all, but that of a middle-aged school mistress, holiday-making in the Austrian Tyrol, who finds herself caught up by sudden love for an Austrian innkeeper? For a few precious hours she plays with the idea of giving up all for lovo, but sanity prevails— : there is t'he innkeeper’s stolid wife and her own still more stolid travelling companion—and, with a breaking heart, she turns her back on dreams, and goes out once more into her drab and loveless world. New “Constant Nymph." Slight enough; yet here there is the whole tragedy of middle-age—that tragedy so wonderfully exploited in “Der Rosenkavalier"—which for a fleeting moment finds youth in its grasp, only to lose it all as soon again. It has the same pathetic appeal as “The Constant Nymph,” and I feel that there must he some magic In the Austrian Tyrol, around which these lovely plays are written. The comedy characters are delightfully observed—the English vicar and his adventurcius sister, the hearty German Darby and Joan, and the young couple so eagerly trying out a “companionate marriage” experiment. And the part of Fanny is not only beautifully drawn, but might have, been created for Fay Compton. She. was to perfection the Autumn Crocus, the spring flower that blossoms again in the autumn. A Lovely Performance. It was beautiful to watch her gradually warming to Life,'‘Love and Romance, like a peach on a garden wall —a truly lovely piece of acting. Francis Lederer, the young Czechoslovakian actor, had a more difficult task. His voice is sometimes a little harsh, but he has enormous charm of the Maurice Chevalier kind, very good looks, and considerable acting ability. I fancy that he will soon become a favourite. Good plays usually inspire good acting, and I would like to name the whole of Mr Dean’s admirable cast. I must content myself with a special word of praise for Muriel Aked’s wonderful English, spinster, Martita Hunt’s disapproving school mistress, and Frederick Ranalow’s pleasantly vocal German tourist. \ In short, a lovely play, exquisitely cast, beautifully put on and producod, and perfectly acted. The authoress, Miss Dodie Smith, who calls herself G. L. Anthony, is said to he employed by some furnishing emporium in the Tottenham Court Road. If she can continue lo cope with furniture and still write pl:o» like “Autumn Crocus,” well and good. Otherwise . • «