THE THEATRE.
THE STAGE SOCIETY.—" SIX CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF AN AUTHOR : A COMEDY IN THREE ACTS " BY LUIGI PIRANDELLO, TRANSLATED BY MRS. W. A. GREENE.
THE Stage Society has a fine record. It has been the first to produce and make known the plays of a number of English authors who have since become famous. Mr. Bernard Shaw, Mr. Arnold Bennett, Mr. H. Granville-Barker, Mr. John Mase- field, the late Mr. Stanley Houghton. Mr. Somerset Maugham were all indebted to the Stage Society for the early production of their plays, and the Society's standard of performance has always been high, reaching in some cases to an excellence never attained in the ordinary London theatre. In addition, the Stage Society has performed plays by Byron, Robert Browning, Henry James, Mr. Thomas Hardy, Mr. Joseph Conrad and Mr. George Moore which otherwise we should never have had an opportunity of seeing. This is its record in English plays ; but it has an equally high one in foreign plays, for it is due to the Stage Society alone that we have had the chance of seeing in the theatre the work of such European authors as D'Annunzio, Gorki, Hauptmann, Gogol, Schnitzler, Strindberg, Ohekov, Tolstoy, Wedekind, Turgenev and Ibsen. It has been the only means of keeping Engiish dramatists in touch with the work of their contemporaries. abroad, • and its production this week of Pirandello's comedy is alone a complete justification for its present appeal-to-the pockets of all who are interested in supporting work superior to the commercial shoddy of the ordinary London theatre. cr therefore ask all readers who can -afford to give a donation, however small, to the Society to send it to the secretary, 36 Southampton Street,,Stmnd, or to become subscribers entitling them to seats for its productions, since the -Society must raise 1.500 this year or cease to exist after an honourable career of nearly twenty.five- years.
There is only space to say a few words about Pirandello's comedy which was excellently produced• by Mr. Komisarjevsky at the Kingsway Theatre. Signor Pirandello has written what really amounts to a biting criticism of the theatrical profession. Into the midst of the rehearsal of a play walk six characters demanding that they should be allowed to live. They begin relating their story to the manager who, presently intrigued, agrees to perform their drama with his own company. But at the hands of his actors it becomes something entirely different. This is worked out very ingeniously with a wealth of satire and humour. The play is illuminating and very amusing. Miss Muriel -Pratt and Mr. Franklin Dyall were superb as the two leading characters, but the whole play was wonderfully well acted, and the production had that rare unity and polish characteristic of Mr. Komisarjevsky's work.
W. J. TWINE&
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