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WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1933.
Art and Drama
2,300 YEAR-OLD GRAPES FOUND.
Ancient Pots Unearthed
At Maribor.
Belgrade.
Two well-preserved black grupes estimated to be about 2,300 years old were found in one of a number
of ancient pots unearthed in
garden at Maribor.
д
The first arn was found by a man
digging in his garden. He report-
THE CHINA MAIL.
A LONDON STAGE CRITICISM
Conspiracy Of Silence About Good Plays
AN AMERICAN OPINION
(By ALEXANDER WOOLLCOTT,
The Distinguished American Dramatic Critic.)
Edward Knoblock, Beverley Nichols, Bruce Lockhart, the Raymond Mas seys, Vyvian Holland, Harold Nicol son, and Gilbert Miller, in some in- {stances of their own free will.
BRITISH MUSEUM'S FAMOUS CLOCKS.
350-Year-Old Timepiece Still Going.
London The oldest clock in the British
To say nothing of the leading Museum was made 850 years ago
dramatic critics of London whom I
met (thanks to the hospitality. of and it is still perfectly accurate. It my old friend, C. B. Cochran), in is tinkered with and kept in order what is-technically known as a body. by Mr. Herbert Victor Batten, who. And not one of the lot ever so much has been locksmith for the 35,000 RA mentioned "Children in Uniform" locks in the British Museum for the to me. I do not know why. I think
past thirty years. Clum Mr. Maugham they should all be shot at sunrise.
3
the
"This oldest clock," he said, ed his discovery to a local archeolo- It was during an intermission at while, of course," And saying it
It is not as if the merits of the shows the time, the dates of the gist, Professor Bash, who establish- the world premiere of "The Trojan with inexplicable cheerfulness.
The visitor hears this refrain at
The Customs play and performance had escaped days, the signs of the Zodiac, where ed that the urn was identical with Women," I believe Mr. Shaw may
exactly - that an the very frontier.
all. When I men-1] those found some years ayo at remember Hallstadt, in Upper Austria, and Athenian bon vivant, with acidosis officers at Dover will say something them. Not at
and hardening of the arteries, was like this: "Any wines, spirits, totloned it to them they most of them the moon is and the position of
Thank you.
Any agreed bashfully that here, for once every eclipse which taken place any- was of the early bronze age.
Excavations were continued with heard to observe that the theatre bacco, sir?
depth bombs, candled violets, or in a way, was something pretty fire. where in the world.
"The figure of a young boy funds provided by the Maribor was not what it was.
Ever since then, in all lands and deleterious reading-matter? Thank It is not as if the play and perform-
And how long are you going/ance were not appreciated in Lon strikes the first quarter, a youth the and the Municipality
Dravska
A month? don generally, for the attendance, I Banovina and labour provided free times, it has been a matter of you.
common consent that neither the to be with us, sir? by the local prison authorities.
third, and a hoary veteran gives the plays nor the winters (especially Thank you. Ah! you will see understand, has been satisfactory in second, a middle-aged man uf Most of the urns were full
the snowstorms) are what they nothing worth while in the theatres, quantity and quality,
I suppose that word of it is pass Anal clang. Death strikes the ashes and were in small tiled graves,
I am afraid. Thank you." were when grandpa was a boy,
ed from playgoer to playgoer by hours but on the other side is Jesus two in each grave. Around one
At least, that is now my impres-some secret code that would escape But while it has always been an
confused-of my urn in each grave were ornaments, brooches, pins, car-rings, and brace-honoured and universal tradition to sion-possibly
tera And it is not as if, at the representing eternal life.
"Then the music begins and lets and around the other weapons, deplore the current vintage of the own passage through Dover. If the stranger. Or by anonymous let-Christ, who keeps coming out-
It is pro- theatre, whatever the quality, it has Customs official had not said some-
angels move round in a circle and spear heads and kives.
as a topic never
It was bable therefore that each grave con- remained, I think for the British of thing like that, surely I would have gatherings into which I have stray
certain noticed it. Anyway, I gather thated, the theatre
made in Strasbourg." tained the remains of a man and a to-day to do so with a
melancholy pride and ព kind of the wretched state of the London happened to come up. Not at all, curtsy to the Virgin Mary.
It came up repeatedly.
The Museum has bad the clock wife.
theatre is a theory dear to the Bri-
For instance, I would be told I' Between the two uras in some gloomy satisfaction.
tish heart. Therefore, when Nothing Worth While!
have seen it twice-and with much the previous 50 years the clock had bronze pots and vases which are.be- Perhaps they relish disintegra-beautiful play does somehow de- must see "Words and Music." Well, for 60 years and during that and for lieved to have contained food and tion as such and are mysteriously fantly get itself produced here with pleasure. I would be told I might as been stopped. Famous clockmakers
these beguiled by what the late Mr. Hen-a perfect cast, everyone is tremend-well look in on "Evensong," an old tried in vain. in one of drink.
It was
ley used to call the exquisite ously embarrassed and immediately paste gem exhumed from some pro- tinkered with it for a whlie and the that the grapes were found.
Professor Bash believes this dis- chromatics of decay." You cannot enters into a conspiracy of silence perty-room and made bearable by clock has gone ever since.
Also in the British Museum is one the overpowering Edith Evans. covery of a graveyard proves that go out to dinner here or at least on the subject.
A Beautiful Piece.
I was even advised, with 'sundry of the oldest known grandfather It was made in 1676 and clocks. there must have been a town of con- I cannot go out to dinner here--with-
Thanks, I suspect, to this
reservations, to attend Mr. Maus-will go for a year with one winding. aiderable importance nearby and alout somebody across the table, say-
be ing. "You'll be seeing a lot of plays strange secretiveness, it was all unham'e glum and emphatic sym-t loses one second in six months. search for its remains will now
There, I expect. Nothing worth prepared and quite by accident that posium, "For Services Rendered," undertaken. Reuter.
I chanced into a amall London play which he appears to have written Another clock is in the form of a house not long ago and experienced under the apprehension that the cow and two farms hands. One there one of the finest evenings I audience would be not quite bright. labourer points the time with his ever spent in a theatre anywhere in as if infected by his misgivings, it stick and at the hour the other one A pint of milk is the world. It was a curious, tender seemed to me that even such excel-milks the cow, and penetrating play that had come lent players as Mr. Hardwicke and poured in and this lasts for 74 hours. Each hour the man draws across the North Sen, by way of theiss Robson hurled the play's Hook, and I found here the kind of points at us carefully like so many Just enough to all his tiny buckets. deeply satisfying performance which must, whenever the miracle does occur, give to the playwright the eerte sense of a dream come true.
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I am referring to the translation ported afterwards that the mother galleries now arranged in the south of Christa Winsloe's "Gestern und entered the first act with the word end of the Hutchinson wing of the Hente"-the gently pathetle tragedy "Cancer" printed on her bosom in Art Institute. first introduced here in the film electric lights. But, even if it was.
The January issue of the Art version called "Madchen in Uni- not all so painfully explicit as that, Institute's monthly bulletin will be form." That was made paltry in I myself felt that Mr. Maugham, a thirty-two page memorial number retrospect by its witless and timor- often so unerring a marksman, was devoted to the memory of Martin A. que avoidance of its own dread con-employing this time what the Amer Ryerson. clusion. Now the play itself is to lean police, in reporting cases of be seen at the Duchess Theatre assault and battery, always refer to under the title of "Children in
as "some blunt instrument." Uniform." In the all-important
Everyone said to me in a moroso central role it has found in Jessica Tandy a young actress who meets manner, "I suppose you'll have to i needs with a performance so see For Services Rendered.' Awful sensitive, so honest, and so infallibly stuff." But no one told me I must true that I shall remember it with Bee "Children in Uniform. I do
not know why, gratitude.
the
I understand that the original But I had to find out about it for!
revere the Press reception of "Children in myself. I know and traditional British capacity for fly-Uniform" was both perceptive and ing into a great calm, so that I uncommonly cordial. I was not in would scarcely expect volunteer com-London at the time, but, té a visitor
York (where New mittees to meet the trains at Vic-from toria Station and tell arriving pendulum of eflticism in its awing visitors that they must see "Chul-from rapture to abuse, from Idola dren in Uniform."
try to mayhem, describes a wider arc), the London dramatic critics do I would certainly be surprised if seem a bit lukewarm when an occa members of the House of Lordssion for really hot enthusiasm offers were to direct traffic towards its itself.
Outraging Reticence
box-office by donning full regalla It so happens that I did attend and standing on their respective another first night here recently. It heads in Catherine-street, as a was a fair-to-middling whimsy call- gracious if inadequate acknowledged "Jonah and the Whale," The ment of the pleasure the perform-reviews in the newspaperz next day *28 more than' kind. ance bad given them. Such excesses struck me
of appreciation would strike even Tender, really. I would have neither my faintly rowdy mind as unseemly. the disposition nor the impertinence But I should think the British to quarrel with them on that score. tradition of reticence would not be it is, after all, a matter of scale.
If "Jonah and the Whale" is to too greatly outraged if once in a while someone were to say in a be described as pretty good, wilch casual manner to a biddable atran-is all right with me, then "Children ger: "You might have a look in Uniform", must, it seems to me, at this 'Children in Uniform. Not be described as simply magnificent, half bad, they tell me." Yet I have an occasion for half-holidays in the been in London since December Bischools, for the ringing of tocains, and I am able to report with wonder and for dancing in the streets. that no one has so much as mention. Hence this classical pas seul." ed the play to me,
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