"BILLETED."
No wonder the Royalty Management, realising how resolutely determined
the public was to have nothing to do with anything so witty and
workmanlike as _The Foundations_ of Mr. GALSWORTHY, have for their
new bill declined upon the pleasantly trivial comedy of errors and
tarradiddles, _Billeted_.
[Illustration: BILLETING AND COOING.
_(The happy ending.)_
_Captain Rymill_ ... MR. DENNIS EADIE.
_Betty Taradine_ ... MISS IRIS HOEY.]
_Betty Taradine_ is billeting at her pretty manor-house a nice
vague Colonel. The Vicar's sister disapproves, because _Betty_ is a
grass-widow, and _Penelope_, the all-but-flapper, an insufficient
chaperone. She expresses her disapproval with a hardy insolence
which must be rare with vicars' sisters in these emancipated times.
Naturally when you have a great deal of palaver about _Betty's_
husband having deserted her two years ago after a serious tiff, and no
word spoken or written since, you rightly guess that the expected new
Adjutant, _Captain Rymill_, will be none other than the missing man.
But you probably don't guess that _Betty_, to spoof the Church and
keep the _Colonel_, has decided to kill her husband by faked telegram.
So you have a distinctly intriguing theme, which Miss TENNYSON JESSE
and Captain HARWOOD handle with very considerable adroitness and
embroider with many really sparkling and laughter-compelling lines.
I should like to ask the pleasant authors some questions. How is it
that the infinitely susceptible Colonel who loves _Penelope_, but
is so overcome by the pseudo-sorrowing _Betty_ that he is afraid of
"saying so much more than he means," and appeals to his invaluable
Adjutant for help--how is it he survived a bachelor till fifty? And
how did _Betty_, with her abysmal ignorance of pass-book lore, manage
to postpone her financial catastrophe for two whole years? And how do
they suppose so popular and personable man as _Taradine_ could come
back to England under an assumed name without a number of highly
inconvenient questions being asked? More seriously, I would ask if
they really expect us to believe in the reconciliation on so deep
a note of this nice butterfly and this callous husband, who never
intended, but for the War, to come back from his big-game shooting,
and who took no pains to arrange suitable guidance (there was a lawyer
vaguely mentioned but he seems to have been singularly unobtrusive)
for the obviously incompetent spouse whom he professes still to love?
I am afraid it will not do. The one real point of weakness in the
presentation was that Mr. EADIE could not modulate from the key of
agreeable flippancy in which the comedy as a whole was set into that
of the solemnly sentimental coda. Thus was the artistic unity of a
pleasant trifle destroyed.
Mr. DAWSON MILWARD'S clever careful method made the _Colonel_ a
very live and plausible figure. Some of his intimate touches were
exceedingly adroit. The authors deserve a fair share of the credit.
Indeed there was throughout a suggestion of clever characterisation
conspicuously above the average of this _genre_. _Penelope_ was an
excellently developed part, rendered with unexpectedly mature skill by
Miss STELLA JESSE. The _Vicar_ promised at first to be a new type, but
the authors seemed to have lost interest in him half-way, and not even
Mr. LAWRENCE HANRAY'S skill and restraint could quite save him. I rate
Mr. EADIE as an actor too high to be much amused by him in obviously
EADIE parts. "A man's reach must exceed his grasp." I think it just to
Miss HOEY to say that she seemed a little handicapped by efforts of
memory, a condition which will duly disappear and leave her charm to
assert itself. Mr. GEORGE HOWARD was quite admirable as a Scots bank
manager; Miss BLANCHE STANLEY, a really sound combination of essential
good-nature and wounded dignity as a cook on the verge of giving
notice. Miss GERTRUDE STERROLL tackled a vicaress of the Mid-Victorian
era (authors' responsibility this) with a courage which deserves both
praise and sympathy.