"TEA FOR THREE."
Playwright Mr. ROI COOPER-MEGRUE, and principal players Miss FAY COMPTON,
the wife; Mr. STANLEY LOGAN, the friend, and Mr. A.E. MATTHEWS, the
husband, made a first-rate thing of two-thirds of _Tea for Three_.
The wife is without blemish physically or morally. The husband is faithful
with a single-minded fidelity in thought, word and deed that looks (and, I
am assured by equally innocent victims, is) positively deadly. The friend
"frits and flutters" about in a distinctly casual, not to say polygamous,
mood, but has one sacred place in his untidy heart in which the wife is
enshrined. He can manage to sustain life so long as he may come to
triangular tea on Thursdays. But the faithful husband puts his foot on
that.
Hence the stolen lunch for two with which the play opens. Philosophy there
is, and very good philosophy too, from the flutterer and fritter, and such
love-making as every virtuous woman (at heart a minx) allows. She is sorry,
doubtless, for the suffering she causes, but (this is my gloss, not, I
think, the author's) is really enjoying it like anything and taking jolly
good care to look her best. Then follow little lies and as little and as
needless and quite innocent indiscretions; and the jealous husband on the
rampage.
All this excellently put together, seasoned with wisdom and wit and most
capably played; Miss FAY COMPTON, admirable example of a pretty actress who
won't let herself be captured by stage tricks, making everything explicable
except her continued love for her intolerable bore (and Turk) of a husband;
Mr. A.E. MATTHEWS handling a desperately unsympathetic part, which was
already beginning to look impossible, with great adroitness; and Mr.
STANLEY LOGAN, though badly hampered by a shocking cold and fighting a
coughing audience, carrying the bulk of the good talk and lifting it gently
over the few difficult places with a brilliant and well-concealed art.
Thus till towards the end of the Second Act. Then a bad, a very bad, fairy
stuffed into Mr. MEGRUE'S head the idea of the suicide lottery. The
infuriated husband, finding his wife in her friend's room at 7 P.M.
(frightfully improper hour), sternly offers his bowler (or Derby) hat, in
which are two cards. The one marked with a cross is drawn by the flutterer
and means that he is for it. He is to kill himself within twenty-four
hours.... And all this with perfect seriousness.
You will see how the Third Act of a comedy which had tied itself in this
kind of a knot simply could not be played. The author had completely
sacrificed plausibility, and it was not uninteresting to see him twisting
and turning, hedging and bluffing to save it; and a little uncomfortable to
note the conviction oozing away out of the performers.... Queer also that
it isn't more generally recognised that to come to the theatre with a loud
persistent cough is a form of premeditated robbery with violence.