Great War Theatre

Performances at this Theatre

Date Script Type
N/A Romance Unknown
11 Mar 1915 The New Word Unknown
11 Mar 1915 Rosy Rapture Unknown
22 Mar 1915 The New Word Professional
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‘The new Barrie programme at the Duke of York’s Theatre began very well with a one-act play called “The New Word.” This is a charming work, full of tender humour, and exhibiting throughout the real Barrie touch. The purpose is to show the curious restraint of feeling often displayed by British fathers and their grown-up sons to one another. At first it seemed entirely comical in a rather cruel way, the father being sarcastic about the first appearance of the son in his uniform as Second Lieutenant, but afterwards came a scene Between the father and son, in which it appeared that the war had broken down the barrier between them. So, in a strange, timid way, the hearts of the two men groped towards one another, and the piece ended on a touching note of tenderness. Mr O. B. Clarence played the part of father very finely; Mr. Geoffrey Wilmer acted excellently as the son; and the mother was represented beautifully by Miss Helen Haye’. The Scotsman, Tuesday 23 March 1915. ‘we had half an hour of the real Barrie in “The New Word.” It was the Barrie who exaggerates even the plain domestic emotions, and who somehow manages to strike jarring notes when he would be most tender and human. But nevertheless “The New Word,” which presented us with a scene in “Any Home Nowadays,” touched a very true and emotional note. A father proud of his second-lieutenant son and the son of his father, yet each hiding feelings under a veneer of indifference, and finally admitting with a shyness only men can understand how much they were to each other - that was the real Barrie, and the audience so acclaimed it. Mr. O. B. Clarence and Mr. Wilmer were very natural as father and son’. The Globe, 23 March 1915. ‘The Barrieishness that is absent from “Rosy Rapture” is to be found in full measure in “The New Word”, described by the author as a “fireside scene.” Each one of the four characters in this perfect little play is a real, living, breathing person. We have met them all, the adorable, fond, foolish and yet very wise mother, the enthusiastic hero-worshipping little flapper sister, and the menfolk of the family, father and son, utterly British, what the frankly emotional Jew calls “Goy,” which, being translated, is inarticulate, loathing to display emotion, veiling feeling under an assumption of “chaff.” The son is a “second lieutenant” (that is the new word that has become a household term since the beginning of August, 1914), and he has put on his new uniform for the first time, and is going off early the next morning. Mother and flapper sister are overflowing with love, solicitude, and admiration which the second lieutenant, nineteen years of age (“it is the great age to be to-day”), bears with half-shamefaced pride. Mother leaves husband and son to have a little talk. Admitting the “awkward relationship” that exists between them, they acknowledge “that they have often wondered what sort of a fellow the other was,” and with many jerks and pauses the father blurts out that he is “fond of” his son and the son that he has “bragged about” his father at school. They are so much alike fundamentally that they understand one another without clumsy speech. The war has unsealed their lips; the war has made the father realise that he is a middle-aged man envying the “lucky dogs who are damned twice a day on parade.” With a tremendous effort father and son manage to show a little of the deep emotion that is swaying(?) them – a very little, but just enough to satisfy both. It is impossible for this gem of a play to be more exquisitely acted than it is at the Duke of York’s Theatre at the present time. It is enough to say that Mr. O. B. Clarence is the Father and Miss Helen Haye is the Mother. More perfect Barrie actors than these two cannot be found. Mr. Geoffrey Wilmer is admirable as the Son, and Miss Gertrude Lang is an enchanting little Sister’. The Era, 24 March 1915. ‘In the new programme which Mr Frohman offers at the Duke of York’s there is both the real Barrie and the imitation article. “The New Word” is the real Barrie, and no one who listens to the conversation between the 2nd-lieutenant son and the curiously nervous father in what is described as a “fireside scene” can fail to be touched by the sentiment and the humour. Sir James has a genius for putting into language that which we all are thinking and feeling. Here we have an episode which must have been witnessed in thousands of homes since war began. Sons who were held of little account by the stern parent have become, because of their uniform, the master of the house. Everyone submits to the hero in khaki; he is the adored of mother and daughter, while father, if with a struggle, yields to him pride of place. The war has meant the emancipation of the young man, and to listen to the talk between this particular father and son is to understand how the hardness and the restraint which too often grow up between them is broken under the stress of these new conditions, and how the affection of the one and the love of the other well up at the right moment until the new word is heard bringing joy to him who at last is addressed as “dear father.” Dear we take to be the new word. The trifle, very human and very tender, was admirably played by Mr. O. B. Clarence and Mr. G. Wilmer; Miss H. Haye and Miss G. Lang appearing as mother and daughter’. The People, 28 March 1915. ‘we had the real Barrie in the little gem called “The New Word,” … Here, with the nicest humour and delicate tenderness, the author made fun of our English reticence, and the difficulty of a father and grown-up son in showing to one another their mutual affection. Then, with the finest art, Sir James showed how the war and the son’s uniform had broken down the barrier, and their affection became articulate - very timidly articulate. Nobody else could have written this delightful short play. Barrie at his best … Mr. O. B. Clarence presented the father quite perfectly, and Miss Helen Haye acted the mother’s part beautifully’. The Sketch, 31 March 1915. The Globe, Saturday 29 May 1915, advertised for that day the last two performances of ‘Rosy Rapture’ and ‘The New Word’ at the Duke of York’s Theatre. ‘Although [Barrie’s] revue [Rosy Rapture] was given an unfavourable review from The Times, The New Word was well received, running for seventy-eight performances’. Jenna L Kubly, ‘J. M. Barrie and World War I’ in Tholas-Disset C. and Ritzenhoff K. A. (eds), Humor, Entertainment, and Popular Culture During World War I, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2015, pp. 197-208 at p. 198.
6 Sep 1915 The Crumbs That Fall Unknown
29 May 1916 Daddy Long Legs Unknown
15 Oct 1917 The Thirteenth Chair Unknown
16 Feb 1920 Kitty Breaks Loose Professional
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The play received a total of eight matinée performances on 16-18, 20, 23-25 and 27 February 1920 (source: https://lesliehowardsteiner.blogspot.com/p/kitty-breaks-loose-kingston-stack-duke.html). ‘In “Kitty Breaks Loose,” by Kingston Stack, at the Duke of York’s, we are presented with the problem of the well-intentioned rich who are constantly being disappointed that their efforts to entertain the ex-soldier merely result in mutual agonies. When at the end Act I. the heroine says that “the trouble is that we do not understand each other,” we rather hoped that the authoress might throw some new light on “the trouble.” But from that point she became more interested in the love affairs of this blue-blooded heroine, who, disguised as a nursemaid, is wooed and won by common soldier. In the end her father’s consent to the match is obtained in the name of “comradeship.” The plot is very and often rather inconsequential, but the dialogue is amusing, the characters well drawn, and the acting excellent'. Daily Herald, 17 February 1920. ‘Called a fantastical comedy and produced for matinées only at the Duke of York’s Theatre yesterday afternoon, “Kitty Breaks Loose” proved to be a mixture of flat-footed fantasy and conventional comicality. In order to emphasise the need of gratitude to our heroes, the author gives Kitty an impossibly snobbish stepmother. She, of course, personifies bad taste, while the girl represents good nature and the love that makes light of social fetters. Some old comrades, who treat an invitation to tea as a fatigue, were funny enough caricatures, and Mr. Leslie Howard was amusingly true to life as a smart young sergeant, who sets the enterprising heroine free from smart set. A band of jolly children romped round a melancholy old organ-grinder, whose music is supposed to be magical; but, as usual, the charm belonged to the little people themselves’. Daily Mail, 17 February 1920, from https://inafferrabileleslie.wordpress.com/theatre-3/kitty-breaks-loose-1920. 'There are pretty ideas and amusing lines in the play, but their effect is lost in the general vagueness and faintness of the handling'. The scene ‘in which Kitty dressed her sergeant in evening clothes, and tried to pass him off to her people as a baronet, was not to be justified on the grounds either of good sense or of good comedy; and to call your play “fantastical” is not to be relieved of all obligation to the laws of comedy and of sense'. The Times, 17 February 1920, from https://lesliehowardsteiner.blogspot.com/p/kitty-breaks-loose-kingston-stack-duke.html. ‘The performance clearly diverted a numerous audience, especially well pleased at the children’s gambols in the second act’. The Stage, 19 February 1920, from https://lesliehowardsteiner.blogspot.com/p/kitty-breaks-loose-kingston-stack-duke.html. 'Round the central figures of adventurous Kitty and her Mister Wilson revolve such minor characters as Lord and Lady Hartley, Lord Arthur Francis, a nut, Lady Eleanor Sinclair, aleni .le nut [sic], and Old Mad Pat, who owns a barrel organ and speaks in parables to a band of children. None of these characters can be said to possess any real life of their own. They are so many Aunt Sallies set up by Mr. [sic] Stack as targets for our wreaths and bouquets or for the brickbats of our disapproval'. The Athenaeum, 20 February 1920, from https://inafferrabileleslie.wordpress.com/theatre-3/kitty-breaks-loose-1920. ‘It is a significant sign of the times, indicative of the experimental instinct that is to be found everywhere, that the matinée as a method of trying new plays is on the increase. The latest example is a comedy entitled “Kitty Breaks Loose,” which was put on at the Duke of York’s on Monday afternoon ... but it cannot be called a very successful experiment, for if there are many clever points, the whole has not been welded into that unified form which the stage demands, and even players with the skill of Miss Helen Haye and Mr. Arthur Whitby, as Kitty’s papa, could hardly make the comedy a success. One of the best episodes showed children dancing to a barrel-organ’. The Graphic, 21 February 1920. ‘Young Leslie Howard, of Dion Boucicault’s Company, claimed my admiration in Kingston Stack’s simple little comedy called “Kitty Breaks Loose,” which has been put up at the Duke of York’s for series of matinées. Leslie was a lovable lad in khaki, to whom Kitty made a Leap Year proposal on the benches in the park. The kiddies in the piece gambolled and chattered amusingly, especially Theodore Stack and Theresa Gorringe. Kitty’s breaking loose is not an affair of palpitating importance’. Sporting Times, 21 February 1920. 'The name of the author, “Kingston Stack,” hides a lady, and for a few matinees at the Duke of York’s she is giving us some simple thoughts on the independence of the young and the wickedness of snobs. They are very simple thoughts. They reflect upon the impossibility in this brutal world of really bringing people of gentility and warriors from the ranks together in comfortable harmony at drawing-room tea-tables, and to console us for this they imagine that if a Kitty does break away from the deadening atmosphere of her baronial home and wander through the Park as a nursemaid, she may after all pick up a presentable young sergeant in the Engineers with whom to live happily without any final breach with her haughty (and ill-mannered) relatives. It is very nice to hear these things, and I am sure it does us good. But I fear that “Kingston Stack’s” way of delivering her message will cause no general excitement. There’s no harm in the little affair. The tea-party is as such things are in the hands of dramatists of experience, and the final scheme of bringing the young man to a dance and introducing him as a baronet would not have occurred to any girl who really wanted to smooth things down with her family as this Kitty seemed to do; but there was a pleasant little love passage, and two children acted cleverly, and such excellent people as Mr. Arthur Whitby and Miss Helen Have had been brought in to help with their experience of what real plays are. Also Mr. Leslie Howard played the young sergeant naturally, and one of the soldiers (whom I did not identify) went to the piano and sang a song quite well, though I fully expected from him a comic exhibition of what should not be sung in drawing-rooms. But I am afraid that “Kitty Breaks Loose” is merely a rather pathetic specimen of the unwanted babe’. Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 28 February 1920. The Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, 29 December 1920, looking back at the year’s London theatre, lists “Kitty Breaks Loose” as one of the new plays that failed to find support, taking success as a run of four or five weeks.