Euripides and Shaw
With Medea in Professor Gilbert Murray's translation there is no innovation ; and it was World Theatre's business only to tread firmly and gracefully on a well-beaten path. The rhythms of Gilbert Murray's verse tend, by their own smoothness, to monotony. The round vowels begin by soothing and end, through repetition, by vexing, like an over-solicitous nurse ; and it was an accomplishment of Miss Eileen Herlie's so to vary intonation as never to fall into intoning. The production by Mr. Val Gielgud had, as you would have expected, certainty and force. Also recently, for especial commendation, Mr. Bernard Shaw's In Good King Charles's Golden Days. Before its production in the 193os, I asked the Sage to tell me its theme. " It is the only play about Charles II that is not about Nell Gwynn," he murmurously replied. It is an inadequate description of a wonderful conversation piece. I could not listen to all of this broadcast ; but two minutes would have been enough to convince anyone that Shaw is the ideal radio dramatist—a Prospero for weight, an Ariel for levity.
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