CONTEMPORARY ARTS
THEATRE
"Larger than Life." By Guy Bolten. Based on Somerset Maugham's Novel Theatre. (Duke of York's.) HE is a rash dramatist who allots (as Mr. Bolten does) to one of his characters the line: "People don't say things like that in real life," for he seems thereby to imply that the rest of his dialogue is distinguished for its realism. This is not the case with Mr. Bolten's. His characters do not speak in extravagant or stilted language ; but they are constantly saying, in the most natural manner possible, things that nobody ever does say in real life. They are all of them purely theatrical beings, and this is the more regrettable because the play is about the private life of actors, and depends—or ought to depend—for much of its effect on the contrast beween illusion and reality, between Julia Lambert's self-dramatisa- tion and the hard, petty, unhistrionic background of every-day existence; This contrast is absent, and the trouble with Larger than Life is that there is no life to be larger than. A good illustra- tion of what I mean is provided by the way in which author and producer handle Tom Fennell, the young accountant with whom (in the novel) Julia Lambert cold-bloodedly has an affair in order to restore her own confidence-in her waning physical charms. The whole point about Fennel when we first meet him ought to be that he is a young accountant—hard-up, shy, un-smart, dazzled by first-hand contact with the stars ; and on the stage both his manner and his appearance ought to suggest this. Mr. Hector Ross plays the part quite well,- but nobody could possibly suppose, from his clothes and the way his hair is arranged when he comes on in Act 1, that he is anything but a young actor playing in the West End.
But for all the failings of which Mr. Ross's chevelure is symptomatic, the comedy, which happily gathers speed as it goes along, is not bad entertainment. This is due largely to Miss Jessie Royce Landis, who gives a highly enjoyable display of virtuosity as Julia: Lambert. Mr. Reginald Denny, as her leading man who is also—in • the eyes of the world—her husband, gives a dull per- formance, but Mr. Laurence Naismith is delightful as an old actor who after playing butlers for years is now a butler in real life—or what passes for real life at the Duke of York's.
PETER FLEMING.
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