Hotel Guest (who has organised very mixed doubles). "QUESTION IS, HOW SHALL WE DIVIDE?" Fierce Stranger. "I HAVE IT! WE'LL DICE FOR THE WOMAN."

AT THE PLAY. "GRANITE" (AMBASSADORS). THE Isle of Lundy, as seen vaguely from the mainland, does not strike one as offering many residential amenities. But a hundred years ago, on Miss CLEMENCE DANE'S showing, it was a place of unmitigated gloom. Its granite, not as yet quarried, had entered into the responsive soul of the solitary farmer who drew a hard living from its shallow soil. He brutalised his wife, ordering her about like a dog, and

she barked back. After a dozen years or so of this repulsive life two diversions occurred: (1) the arrival of the husband's half-brother-a retired officer of NELSON'S-whom the wife instantly annexes as a lover; (2) the apparition of a nameless stranger, a crazy halfdrowned man whom she undertakes to restore to life and sanity. This was contrary to the etiquette of Lundy, whose inhabitants had hitherto maintained their exclusiveness, and incidentally drawn a little sideprofit from wrecks, by pushing half-drowned men back into the sea. In this case she relents on conditions. She will bring him back to life and let him stay on as her servant, if he will undertake to deal faithfully with any man who lays violent hands on her.

In the execution of this promise he very soon pushes her husband over the cliff with her approval. She then marries her lover-and he too in due course is pushed over the cliff. This second murder, following on a momentary quarrel due to jealousy, is carried out under strong protests on her part. It then "emerges" that the nameless stranger has engineered this second quarrel for his own purposes, and that all along he has been pursuing a definite programme by which to secure for himself a farm and a woman.

irony in the thought that here he did Her excellent delivery was spoiled by
the service and exacted his toll by two a curiously annoying quality in her
identical acts, namely the pushing of a voice; and she often twisted her per-
pair of husbands, one after the other, fectly good mouth to an appearance of
over the cliff. Indeed I found in this toothlessness.
arrangement an undesigned humour, As Jordan Morris, the husband, Mr.
and confess that when he started off on EDMUND WILLARD had to do two things,
his second murderous enterprise with and he did them well. He was asked
exactly the same deliberate gesture- to be a domineering brute and he was
taking down the same gun from the asked to have a parsimonious eye for
same chimney-piece-as on the first the main chance. In respect of this
occasion, I released a small giggle. But latter characteristic the local granite
I saw instantly that my behaviour was that had entered his soul might easily
out of keeping with the reverential atmo- have come from Aberdeen.

Judith

A Nameless Man.

MISS SYBIL THORNDIKE.
MR. LEWIS T. CASSON.

The nature of his half-brother Prosper was not so simply defined. He had seen the world outside Lundy and was something of a gentleman. But he came of the same blood as Jordan; he too knew what he wanted and could be stubborn about it. Mr. NICHOLAS HANNEN is incapable of indifferent work, but here his very individual qualities were not too well served.

As for the Nameless Man I have no exact picture in my mind of the way in which a devil who comes out of the sea and lands on Lundy might be expected to behave; I only know that I was not so much impressed by Mr. LEWIS CASSON as I was meant to be. I got very few thrills out of that eerie laugh of his which was designed to make my flesh creep.

The only relief came from Penny Holt, the young servingmaid, who retained an astonishing cheerfulness in the ambient gloom. Miss FLORENCE MCHUGH played the part very prettily.

Miss CLEMENCE DANE did her atmosphere well-almost too well for me. And her construction was admirable. She led up very naturally through the suspicions of jealousy to that un

natural quarrel between Judith sphere proper to a first-night audience and Prosper which was so essential to assembled to hear Miss CLEMENCE DANE the Devil's scheme. But I wish she interpreted by Miss SYBIL THORNDIKE. might have given us a little intentional The only excuse for making us spend It may be that Miss THORNDIKE, humour by way of contrast. Perhaps an evening over this squalid business is with her feeling for Greek drama, was granite is too inelastic to make a good offered by a suggestion of supernatural attracted by this irony (no doubt taken jumping-off ground for humour. Here agencies. Just before the appearance seriously) and by the general air of im- again one thinks of Aberdeen. of the half-drowned man, Judith Morris pending doom. Anyhow the play gave The first-night audience seemed to has heard some sort of a legend of the her many chances for a display of enjoy themselves thoroughly. If they Devil coming out of the sea and making elemental emotions, and she was very didn't, they at least concealed their a bargain with a woman for her soul; good in the scene where she tried to re-feelings under a close and rapt attention. and she regards the nameless stranger call the stranger and the wind carried But the appeal of the play is not to as a promising exponent of the Devil's away her voice and she saw the murder uninstructed tastes; and I doubt if there part. The Devil's habit, in these cases, of the man she loved. But without are enough of the faithful to make it a of first doing you a service and then questioning her great gifts I venture resounding success. exacting his toll, is of course vieux jeu. to think that Miss THORNDIKE can be But there was a fresh and rather pleasant rather irritating, both to ear and eye.

For myself it awoke vivid memories of those old times, heavy with depres

Lundy,

sion, when I used to assist at the Stage
Society's productions.
Dramas of doom, whose scenes are laid on
Ought to be kept exclusively for Sunday.
O. S.
"EASY VIRTUE" (DUKE OF YORK's).
There is a pleasant air of ingenuous-
ness about Mr. NOEL COWARD's methods.
This play of his might well have been
called "Easy Satire," for nothing can
be easier than to make "virtue" appear
ridiculous if you take care that it
shall be represented by stuffy and
unlovable people, while its oppo-
site is clothed in every charm of
mind and body. Certainly the
divorcée whom young John Whit-
taker picked up at the Cannes
Casino and brought home as his
wife to live in his father's house,
where she found the womenfolk
as impossible as their antique code
of morals, enjoyed a very easy
triumph over "virtue," though
she ran away in the very hour of
victory.

How did this marriage between a young "healthy animal" and a rusée woman of the world, many years his senior, come about? On the stage these ill-assorted unions are commonly handed to us as accomplished facts, without any attempt to explain them. But here it was essential for Mr. COWARD's purposes that the lady should enlighten the family (and stupid people in the audience) as to the purity of her motives. The boy's infatuation for her well-preserved and heavily-scented charms was understandable enough, but her part in the affair obviously called for some explanation. To a sympathetic acquaintance, who "spoke the same language as she did, Larita explains that she was attracted by John's simplicity and wanted to get away from the life she was leading. To the family

band in front of the children, and the with the quality of her love that she
elder daughter, Marion, tough, mannish, could afford to excuse herself from taking
shingled and sexless-the last quality any interest in the tastes and pursuits
in particular being an unpardonable of the loved one. Instead of sharing
offence in Larita's eyes. (There was them, this woman, so cruelly misunder-
a younger daughter, Hilda, a noisy and stood, preferred to lie about on a sofa
devastating flapper who got on my nourishing her "mental purity" on MAR-
nerves; but, though she was the cause CEL PROUST'S Sodom and Gomorrah.
of the exposure of certain details of the The truth is that Mr. CowARD did not
heroine's past, she didn't count in the make out his case. But in the
process
clash of temperaments). Unfortunately, of failing to do so he gave us some very
however, Larita did her best to alienate effective dialogue, being careful to
our sympathies by her assertion that temper its strength with a liberal in-
fusion of banalities.

Lari!a

enough."

मा.

UNEASY VICE.

..MISS JANE COWL.

"Bring me some lemonade in here, John-it's so nice and cool.

"Wouldn't you rather have gingerbeer?"

"No, lemonade."

There was a good deal of this kind of restful relief.

Still, for all his wit, he might have fared badly but for the excellence of his cast. Miss JANE COWL as Larita was a revelation. The charm of her appearance and of her beautifully flexible voice was matched with a rare swiftness of intelligence. Always she dominated the scene by the force of her personality. I should like to see her in The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, of which Easy Virtue is reminiscent. I am certain she would challenge the achievement of Mrs. PATRICK CAMPBELL.

The whole cast was admirable, and, in particular, Miss MABEL TERRY-LEWIS as the châtelaine. Mr. VERNON KELSO as Charles Burleigh, who "spoke the same language" as Larita (English in form but cosmopolitan in flavour) had a nice understanding manner. Miss JOYCE CAREY, who played Sarah, an old flame of John's, and the one lovable woman in the play, showed those sympathetic qualities that she has inherited from her mother. I wish that she would also reproduce her mother's gentle voice. Miss MARDA

she insists that she loved him, and not, | Marion, with her sex "inhibitions," was | VANNE seemed to have all the physical as their impure minds might imagine, a hypocrite who "placed physical purity equipment needed for the unfeminine in a physical sense. And this higher too high and mental purity not high part of Marion, and played it with love she protests that she retains after a commendably brutal candour. Mr. he has grown tired of her-an improb- Now, whatever forms of offensiveness BARRON, as Colonel Whittaker, who able development on his part, you were chargeable to Marion's account-"thought perhaps a little light irony would say, seeing that she had many and they were many and blatant- might alleviate the prevailing gloom," of those attractions which survive the hypocrisy was not one of them. The had a greater success with the audience waning of desire. Perhaps it was due to real hypocrite of the play was Larita. that indifference to his interests which She protested the purity of her love for was one of the curious manifestations John, but the only person she loved was of her spiritual passion. herself. After concealing from him an ugly episode in her career, on the pretext, convenient only to herself, that true love, about to start a new life, is not concerned with the details of an unsavoury past, she was apparently so satisfied

Mr. COWARD clearly meant us to take her side when he put her up against a couple of women whom we were bound to find unbearable-the hard and intolerant mother who nagged her hus

than with his family. Mr. RAGLAN'S John was sound in body and mind.

And I must not forget the boisterous couples who dashed on and off during the ball of the last Act. Their joyous intrusions and excursions were carried out with great fidelity to nature.

As for Mr. COWARD'S share in the entertainment, there is, as I said, some

thing attractive in his ingenuousness. have been a priest. Choreographically after the symphonic interlude, "FanIt would be most unfair to him to take speaking, the Russians seem to take taisie Finnoise," and aptly. I should his alleged sophistication seriously. His their marriages to an accompaniment not say that a Finnish or Russian sailor attitude here is stamped all over with of thunder and lightning and paroxysms would be frightened in a storm. No the brand of youth-of youth that sets of callisthenic woe. Perhaps that is the waves of the ocean could heave him so itself to remove the old landmarks just new world's notion of marriage. violently as he heaves himself on land. for the fun of seeming cleverer than the The third tableau was "The Departure The back-cloths kept lifting and showpeople who planted them. It is all of the Bride from the Parental Home." ing more and more passionately symrather engaging, like the irresponsibility This naturally increased the pandemo-bolical scenes beyond. of the very young undergraduate who nium. The fourth tableau was "The If a Russian sailor had a wife in every removes brass plates and policemen's Wedding Feast." This intensified the port, and married her choreographically helmets. Mr. COWARD will of course hubbub once again. At the back of to the music of Les Noces in eachgrow out of it in time; but the little the stage was a small alcove contain- But enough of this dreaming. world of the theatre will be the duller ing a bed piled with pillows. I did for that advance towards maturity. not count the pillows. There were four O. S. strong solo singers and four heroic-hearted pianists. Of this I am certain, however, "DIAGHILEFF'S RUSSIAN BALLET" there was only one bridegroom and only (HIS MAJESTY'S). one bride. They stood stony in grief.

I REMEMBER Somebody writing long, long ago

"Nijinsky bounded as he ran

With such superb aplomb
He did not seem to be a man,

He seemed to be a bomb."

These two ballets were preceded by SCHUMANN's Carnaval, which is well enough known and pretty without being seismic.

Everything was rapturously received, and when the various artistes, vocal, instrumental, saltatory, had succeeded in grouping themselves for the curtains, they were seen to be almost ambuscaded in flowers. EVOE.

For the rest the distinction between the outbreak of a Soviet revolution and the ritual of a wedding-party seemed almost infinitesimal. But does it matter much? The patterns are beautiful. The Russian ballerinas have their exquisite A Ball will be held at 18, Carlton Muscovite empires may crumble, grace. The Russian male dancers, as House Terrace, on Wednesday, June 30th, Muscovite favourites retire, but the usual, bound into the air and pause at the on behalf of the Funds of the Victoria Russian Ballet proceeds from strength top of their bound so long that they seem Hospital for Children. The PRINCE OF to strength. We were all determined to be practising the art of levitation. WALES, its President, has promised to to be immensely enthusiastic about Nobody falters in his harmonious mad-attend. This hospital, which is celeLes Noces, and no wonder. DIAGHILEFF! ness. It is all one tremendous diabolical brating its Diamond Jubilee, finds itself STRAVINSKY! GOOSSENS! This was their thrill. It was so with Les Noces. It highest trump. Almost their last trump, one might say. Les Noces is described on the programme as "Russian choreographic scenes in four tableaux -without interruption," and unless one can apply this term to two doublegrand pianos and the tonitant repercussion of cymbals and drums (I was well on the brass side) and the punctuation of many marriage bells, no doubt the definition is adequate.

How to describe Les Noces, who knows? Who could possibly know? It was all in black and white. The dancers, when they were not more actively employed, piled themselves and laced themselves into pyramidical patterns, from which peered forth sorrowful heads. One might start in verse:— The bridesmaids weave and intermingle; The pallid bride in fear and hopes Has scorned the fashionable shingle

was so with Les Matelots.

in need of a sum of £15,000 for urgent
purposes, and of an additional income
of £3,000. Tickets for the Ball, three
guineas each (to include a Champagne
Supper), can be obtained from the
Hon. Secretary, Mrs. JOHN DANIELL,
15, Elm Park Gardens, S. W.10. Cheques
should be made payable to the Victoria
Hospital for Children.

Symbolism was made easier for me
here. There was, for instance, a small
square screen, on one face of which was
a painted ship upon a painted ocean.
Not idle, though. It shivered with the
motions of the dancers, and after a time
they turned it round to show a Russian
sailor and a Russian sailor's lass, and I
know not what beside. Danilova danced
and Sokolova danced, they danced beau-
tifully; and as for the First Sailor and We fancied we had missed one.
the Second Sailor and the Third Sailor,
how they did dance!

"ALLEGED THEFT OF SUNBEAM.” Provincial Parer.

There was an aerial Unc.
Who talked like a saint or a monk;
But his family life

Was a war to the knife,
And he ended by doing a bunk.

"In a disguise which makes them unrecognisable, the First Sailor and his companions try in turn to make love to the girl." So says the programme. And again, "Her friend suggests taking the young girl to a bar to meet the will be sorry to three sailors, but she refuses." And hear that he was in a motor accident last week yet once more, "The three sailors enter and is progressing favourably.' and throw off their disguises. The young girl rejoins her lover, to whom she has been faithful."

"The friends of dentist D.

Australian Paper. Not really friends, we gather, but merely patients.

His political friends still are satisfied the Prime Minister will do the right thing at the opportune moment, and his personal popularity remains unimpaired, but there are murParty, who expected much from their new murings among the rank and file of the Reform leader, against the delay in putting into operation the fair promises of the bustings."

And done her hair in ten-yard ropes. She had, you know. But that was entirely necessary because the ropes had to be twisted and laid about her Well, I suppose it may have been neck as a symbol of the matrimonial that. But it is putting it rather mildly. chains. The first tableau was " The What the three Russian sailors really Benediction of the Bride." There was did, amongst other things, was to leap one tiny square window in the back- furiously about with chairs, pretending cloth. The second tableau was "The apparently that it was a horse-race. They Benediction of the Bridegroom." There flung themselves about impetuously. were two tiny square windows in the They danced till they shone. WoIZINew Zealand Paper. back-cloth. I suppose the immobile KOVSKY, Lifar, Slavinsky-all of them Mr. BALDWIN, when he reads this comgentleman with the long grey beard performed prodigies of rhythmic hardi- ment upon his New Zealand colleague, would be the father of the bride, but I hood and pulled an incredible number of will congratulate himself on never havdo not feel absolutely sure. There may imaginary ropes. Les Matelots came ing indulged in "bustings."