T
task will probäbig bore him, but it is
less boring (and far more prolitable)
withont any
than writing plavs
assurance of production, Ansther
discouragement is the waywardness of
publie taste. An established dramatist
of the last generation was almost
certain of a three months’ run on his
name and that of his actor-manager
unless his play was a hopeless mess.
Now there is no sueh eertamty, andthe
costs of “nursing“ à piece ure so higli
that plays even by the leading anthors
are very frequently withdrawn at once.
In the face of this discouragement and
of the temptation to take their labours
eisewhere, our dramatists are only
intermittentl, vocal, and this last Fear
has been an especially poor one for
British authorship in the playhouse.
Consider the evidence. Mr. Gollancz
usually has an attractive volume of the
Fear’s drama, but his Famous Plays
of 1936 (78. 6d.), while still attractive,
contains only one native plece out of
six. This is the libretto of a musieal
skit on the mid-Victorians, The Two
Bouquets, by Eleanor and Herbert
Farjeon, gay enough but scarcely im¬
pressive as the sole British con¬
The other pieces are
tribution.
„
Schnitzler’s“ Professor Bernhardi,
good drama of debate on the anti¬
Semitic problem, Parnell,? by Mrs.
Schaufller an American authoress, a
theatrically attractive study of Parnell’s
deeline and fall whose historical
accuracy has been challenged,“ Boy
Girl,
another American
Meets
burlesque of life and work in Holly¬
wood, lively but not so brilliant or ruth¬
less in its satire as “ Once in a Life¬
time, and two more rather grim pieces
from New Vork, “ Bury the Dead.“ by
Irwin Shaw, and“ Till the Day I Die,
by Clifford Odets. These testify tothe
vitality of the theatre from Manhattan
and to the wide sympathies and serions
theatrical interests of its audience.
But where are our British scenes and
themes, our dramatie arguments or
affirmations
Let us turn to Mr. Hamish Hamilton’s
volume Four Plays of 1936 (6s.).
since this publisher has now entered
All bis
the field of play-production.
pieces are by a British hand, but only
one is of contemporary life, and that is
a
crook play—“ The Amazing Dr.
Clitterhouse,? by Barré Lyndon: an
amprobable but livelv and original
show about a mad medico in a thieves'
kitchen, which has done very well at
the Haymarket this autumn. There
are also an acute study of Byron’s love
Miss
storv,“ Bitter Harvest,?
Catharine Turney, and two adaptations
famous novels by Miss Helen
Jerome. Her work on" Pride and
Prejudice? and Jane Eyre has
been rewarded by success in the
theatre in both cases; they show real
care for the original as well as sense
of dramatie form. It is by no means
easy to give a theatrical condensation
of familiar books withont annoying the
lovers of those books. Miss Jerome
has commendably succeeded in that.
Butthis, after all, is a matter of skilful
serving and carving when others have
providedthe meal. Dur seurch for the
big original British work of 1936
continnes.
Bees on
Priestley’s
the
Boatdeck (Heinemann, 5s.) was an
intellectual farce. Was it too farcieal
forthe intellectuals or too intellectunl
for the lovers of farce! It regrettably
failed to achieve the popularity whlich
it certainlg deserved, for it was full of
characters and comment, a half-satir¬
ieal, half-compassionate protestagainst.
the waste of good and skilled sailors,
engineers, and mechanies whose crnft
is the first vietim of industrial slump
or malndjustment. Here, mndeed, was
a play of our time; but our time, as
expressed in the more series verdiets
of Shaftesburg Avenue, was more
interested in Thomas 5 Becket,
Charles I., the Austen erthe Bronté
world than in the pathes of car own
period, which so brillisetly manufac¬