Great War Theatre

Examiner of Plays' Summary:

This is an odd play, with a good deal of clever dialogue scattered through it and ending in a really strong scene of it's kind. It is the work of someone who has thought and theoried rather than observed, but it is intellectually a good way above the ordinary stuff. A little religious society called the 'Seekers' come to a country hotel. It consists of clergymen and pious women and is - in effect and all owing for satire - priggish, well-meaning and futile. Contrasted with it is a worldly little group, of whom the chief is a Honble Nigel Bressingham, a decadent and drunkard but - so far as the author can make him - witty and charming. One of the 'Seekers' is Ruth, a ou girl, beautiful, ignorant of the world and high spirited, not in the least a prig. Nigel and Ruth are attracted to one another, increasingly as the play goes on and in a setting of mild satire with the seekers in Nigel's ancestral and show house. In the last act he makes strong love to her. He points out that marriage with him would be the ruin of her life, that he could never reform or be constraint to her. He suggests first an elopement to Paris and so forth, and on her rejection of this a secret intrigue, which again she rejects indignantly. Then he says if they must marry they will and it is on her own head - but he changes suddenly and refuses in her own interests and goes away, she declaring she will never seen him again. The last few pages are unconventional and rather strong meat, in a way, but I see nothing to bank in them (as life they strike me as false.) Some of the chaff of the seekers with their religious talk might offend some people. But there again I see nothing to be reasonably interfered with and especially since the play is for a select audience and could never be popular. The only point needing a word is in regard. To the hymn-singing of the Seekers. This is off the stage, but it should not be prolonged enough to give offence. Recommended for Licence G. S. Street. [Manuscript addition] The Lord Chamberlain was satisfied with the instructions given as to what hymns were to be sung and the duration of the singing

Licensed On: 3 Mar 1917

License Number: 831

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British Library Reference: LCP1917/5

British Library Classmark: Add MS 66160 Q

Performances

Date Theatre Type
10 Mar 1917 Repertory Theatre, Birmingham Unknown Licensed Performance