Reprisals
Examiner of Plays' Summary:
This is an intensely topical little play, and requires consideration Bill Garside, a munition worker, his wife and child, Rosie, live underneath Mrs Voschmann, a German woman whose husband is interned, and she lives under the roof with a skylight window. Mrs Garside sends Rosie off to a school treat. Mrs Voschman comes in and insists on chatting, to Mrs Garside’s disgust, from a German point of view. Bill comes home and they turn Mrs Voschman out. A raid begins and the explosions come nearer. Mrs Garside, alarmed for Rosie, goes to look for her. Bill, suspicious of Mrs Voshchman, goes with a boy scout to her room, finds her signalling - to guide the German aeroplanes to the munitions works - secures her, and guards her in his room while a policeman searches her room. Mrs Voschman gloats over the probable fate of Rosie and Mrs Garside (returned after a vain search) is with difficulty prevented from going for her. The boy scout brings Rosie’s badge, but Mrs Voschman’s horrible triumph is short-lived, as Rosie rushes in and says her badge was stolen by Mrs Voschman’s little girl whom her mother, knowing of the raid, had sent to the basement and who of course has been killed. The point for consideration is that such a play, especially one quite well done, as this ends, tends to excite violence against Germans still at large. My own opinion is that it is a natural and legitimate expression of emotion and that the Lord Chamberlain would not be wise in interfering, but I mention the point. I advise, however, a caution against the noise of bombs being made too alarming. Recommended for license. G. S. Street. Note: The noise of bombs is going to be made with a drum. The Lord Chamberlain saw Mr […] of the Holborn Empire and pointed out to him that this sketch was decidedly of a strong nature, but there was nothing for the Lord Chamberlain to object to in it and the manager must take the responsibility of any disturbances that might arise.
Researcher's Summary:
Only the one performance week has been identified. The censor would have been pleased that 'the bomb and aircraft effects are of the most simple and undisturbing kind'.
Licensed On: 19 Jul 1917
License Number: 1068
Keyword(s):
British Library Reference: LCP1917/15
British Library Classmark: Add MS 66170 S
Performances
| Date | Theatre | Type | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 23 Jul 1917 | Hippodrome, Putney | Professional |
Licensed Performance
Read Narrative
Horace Hunter advertised in The Era, 11 July 1917 the ‘Greatest Sketch Attraction of the Moment. Reprisals. A Powerful One-Act Play expressing the Sentiment of the People. Will draw Hundreds. Six in Cast. Written and Produced by Horace Hunter’. The Stage, 26 July 1917, reviewed Reprisals, ‘a dramatic sketch, in three scenes, by Horace Hunter’, produced at the Putney Hippodrome on Monday 23 July. The cast was: William Garside, Arthur Page; Jessie Garside, Shirley Stuart; Rosie, Little La Coupe; Mrs. Voschman, Ethel Percival; Jimmy Perkins, Daisy Snow; P.C. Dawson, Charles Derwent. Scenes 1 and 3 were set in William Garside’s sitting room on the fifth floor of an East End tenement house; and scene 2 was set in the roof and attic section of Mrs. Voschman’s rooms on the top floor of the same building. The review continued: ‘It has always been something of an open question as to whether the stage, variety or dramatic, should be used as a channel for pubic “complaints.” Recently we had the problem of profiteering before us in sketch form, and this week the more important question of reprisals has to be faced. In the sketch under notice, the author, Mr. Horace Hunter, who has fathered such capital sketches as “The Man from Manchester” and “Under Suspicion,” has a good axe to grind, and he tells a homely and, at the same time, straightforward story. If the sketch did not quite grip at its first representation, the fault lies with the players engaged, and not with the author. No doubt by the time these lines appear this matter will have been set right, and those responsible will have settled down to their work. The character of P.C. Dawson, also, must be remodelled; a. comic policeman is out of place in such a scene. The story is one of the favourite “spy” themes ... It is in the dialogue that Mr. Hunter scores. Here, as in all the author’s work, he does not mince matters, but calls a spade a spade. The bomb and aircraft effects are of the most simple and undisturbing kind; and the play has been produced by the author in a very able manner’
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