Guardian, Stage, Variety and Observer digitised records 1934-1937

Anonymous1934, Jan 30. WIRELESS NOTES. The Manchester Guardian (1901-1959), 10. 

Wild Decembers  (Radio version)

Note that the “star” from the vehicle was missing, as were all the scenes that focused exclusively on Charlotte.

Clemence Dane’s play about the Bronte family, Wild Decembers, which Mr Cochran produced at the Apollo theatre, London, in May last year, is to be broadcast tonight. In making the adaptation for the wireless the author has omitted the Belgian interlude, which the dramatic critics regarded as the least impressive part of the original play, and the complete action of the new version will take place at Haworth parsonage. The three sisters, Anne, Emily and Charlotte, are played by Thea Holme, Beatrix Lehmann and Lydia Sherwood. Patrick, the brother, by John Cheatle. Alfred Sangster has the part of the father… Gordon Gildard is the producer.

Anonymous1934, Feb 16. PLAY ABOUT AMERICAN BUSINESS. The Manchester Guardian (1901-1959), 10 

Success Story A play about American business, “it was the rise of Sol Ginsberg, the Jew boy of the office, to the the boss…”

“That was a pity because mr Esme Percy, as Ginsber, had been giving a brilliant performance under handicap and Miss Beatrix Lehmann had filled the part of his true love with that deep and vibrant intensity which she can so richly communicate”…

BROWN, I., 1934, Feb 18. The Week's Theatres. The Observer (1901- 2003), 15. ISSN 00297712

Success Story Mr Lawson’s play, though poorly shaped, has plenty of stuff in it, and its theme has evoked some excellent acting from a company handicapped by a natural inability to capture and retain an American method of speech. Mr Esme Percy’s picture of the egotistical Jew, who climbs like a monkey when he get the chance but retains something of his young idealism and sensibility; is rich in emotional bravura; it has strength, dash and variety and is well contrasted with Miss Beatrix Lehmann’s sombre and striking performance as the secretary who sees all, feels much and says little. Miss Lehmann can always command the stage without a word spoke, and her emotional quality perhaps gives a depth to the part which it does not possess. But it is a most interesting piece of work and, were the play less interesting than it is, it would well be worth seeing for the virtuosity of these two players alone.”

The stage Feb 22, 1934

Success Story

Cambridge

On Thursday evening, Feb 15, 1934 at this theatre… (cast) Bea gets top listing

This American drama of new york big business methods and ideals was originally presented in this country at the shilling theatre in Fulham on Jan 1 last and was duly reviewed in the stage on jan 4. Except that Miss Lehmann and Miss Tottenham now play the parts of the two chief girl clerks in Mr Merritt’s office, the cast remains unaltered.

On the whole the mertis of the play emerge less auspiciously at the Cambridge than they seemed in the smaller Fullham playhouse. Mr Percy’s performance as the “elcectric fountain of energy” the get-rich-quick young Jew. …certainly made less impression than formerly. He rattled off his dialogue at such a pace that it was often difficult to guess what he was saying. His mangament of the scene in which the despearate man tries to choke his spouse seemed to miss all its realism; and his subsequent comment on the matter, Just for a moment I felt like killing my wife evoked a very audible titter from the audience….

Miss Beatrix Lehmann failed to make Sarah Glassman a very sympathetic young person, but the character is full of contradictory elements that it is probably not an easy one to play….

The Saturday review, 24 Feb 1934

The Theatre by Prince Nicolas Galitzine

John Howard Lawson has based Success Story at the Cambridge Theatre on the eternal struggle between Jew and Gentile for supremacy in business. Our programme tells us that the action of the play takes place in the new York office of an advertising agency, but apart from a vista of sky-scrapers seen through the window at the back of the stage, there is nothing in the play to bear out the truth of this information. [one wonders what on earth he think would]

It may seem incredible that a large American business should be run exclusively by Englishmen, but this play leaves us in no doubt’ it is a triumph of the Oxford accent on Broadway, the one exception being Mr Esme Percy, who in his flamboyant impersonation of Sol Ginsberg, talks throughout with a marked foreign accent of uncertain origin.

The story deals with a young Jew, Ginsburg, who with the aid of his fiancée Sarah Glassman (Miss Beatrix Lehmann) obtains a small position in the business in which she is secretary to the owner, Raymond Merritt (Mr Jack Minster). Ginsberg a violently emotional character, fights his way to the top of the business tree, always ridden by his three obsessions, money, power and possession. This last causes him to marry Agnes Carter, Merritt’s mistress and in doing so breaks the heart and warps the nature of his fiancée.

Miss Lehmann’s performance as the girl Sarah is a miracle of restrained intensity. The strength of her quietness dominates the whole play, and is a striking contrast to Mr Esme Percy who, with his wealth of gestures, his florid posturings and melodramatic ravings gives us a perfect picture of an exhibitionist, without any of the depth of feeling necessary for the part…

Master builder  ad with top billing

BROWN, I., 1934, May 06. "THE MASTER BUILDER.". The Observer (1901- 2003), 17. ISSN 00297712.

Ibsenism has long ceased to be a creed for peculiar people…

Translated by William Archer (read at BL)

Embassy playgoes should not miss their chance this week of seeing a first-rate production. For while Ibsen weary of his social problems, preferring strange symbolism to his cool draughts of common-sense, Ibsen over-ripe, exasperating, and even trembling on the verge of silliness, like Solness reeling on his tower, yet he still commands admiration for his tremendous power. …You can go for the psychology of Hilda or resolving her into a projection of the Master Builder’s hungry and uneasy mind, you may spend hours with Solness, whose mystery is magnetic. It is the measure o fhte play’s greatness that, with all its teasing qualities it continuously fascinates; Hilda baffles, challenges and enchants our comprehension. Moreover, the play remains a great acting vehicle, and I have not seen a better performance of it than the embassy now offers….Miss Beatrix Lehmann is perfectly cast as Hilda Wangel, for, her sharp, expressive profile and her eyes all eloquence, she can be at once the ecstatic worshipper and remorseless bird of prey. Many HIldas have been industriously “fay” none, in my experience, so essentially the falcon, a thing of air as well as of fire, demonic, taloned, soaring.

Variety  Tuesday may 29, 1934

Literati

Rosamund Lehmann’s sister, Beatrix has turned novelist.

Anonymous1934, Jun 10. THIS WEEK'S DIARY. The Observer (1901- 2003), 6. ISSN 00297712.

This weeks diary, Rumour of Heaven a first novel by Beatrix Lehmann (ahem!)

GOULD, G., 1934, Jun 17. New Novels. The Observer (1901- 2003), 6. ISSN 00297712.

Rumour of Heaven Miss Lehmann, on the other hand, aiming apparently at a sort of Bronte atmosphere almost all gloom and insanity, needs to try her wings more thoroughly before she takes the heights.  Not one character in her book is credible, and most are certifiable, but she has a something. She has dreamed her own world, and in some fashion bodied it forth. The strange children, the strange visitors, the vision of the strange island – there is real imagination at work here. It is easy to find fault with the book, but also very easy to read it.

Anonymous1934, Jun 17. Display Ad 32 -- No Title. The Observer (1901- 2003), 8. ISSN 00297712.

Ad by Publisher

Beatrix Lehmann Rumour of Heaven

7s 6d net

Miss Lehmann’s writing has the same fey quality which distinguishes her acting.  A breath of Wild Decembers blows through this extraordinary second book, which demands serious consideration of her as a novelist.

Anonymous1934, Jun 24. Display Ad 21 -- No Title. The Observer (1901- 2003), 6. ISSN 00297712.

Publisher’s ad

Rumour of Heaven by Beatrix Lehmann

“I recommend the book with some warmth” Ralph Straus in the Sunday Times

Miss Lehmann is a write who can put a spell on you John o’ London’s weekly

LATEST FICTION. 1934. Saturday review of politics, literature, science and art, 157(4108), pp. 866.

Rumour of Heaven Heaven at last

A family shut away from the outer world in a remote country village, with their isolation increased as the years pass through the mother’s fears communicated to her children; then the isolation suddenly broken down, with tragedy as the consequence; and finally the prospect of happiness for the father and surviving child through the offer of a ready-made utopia: this set of circumstances form the basis of a novel of somewhat unusual type, which is also distinguished for a certain imaginative, if elusive, charm. The book is called Rumour of Heaven and is by Beatrix Lehmann.

Stage, Sept 13 1934

Eden End

A new scheme of interior decoration has been carried out at the Duchess Theatre. An orchestral pit large enough for a band of 20 musicians has been constructed, and a system of indirect electrical lighting has been installed throughout the theatre

I, B., 1934, Sep 14. "EDEN END". The Manchester Guardian (1901-1959), 11.

Mr Priestley’s new play

(overview of setting and plot)

The play depends for its immediate dramatic value on the conflict of the two sisters. Stella, trailing homewards with disillusion for her luggage, is finely presented by Miss Beatrix Lehmann as still the bright one, actressy, fond of an emotional flourish, a little tawdry, yet somehow a woman of quality. Against her is set the quiet, brooding hostility of Miss Alison Leggatt’s Lilian…

Eden End has the whole range of domestic emotion. It might have been better box-office tactics to insert more comedy. Mr Priestley starts slowly and builds the doctor’s home brick upon brick, and the bricks might have been more rapidly put in place in future performances. But the point is the dramatist’s resolve to build afresh, not cultivating easy laughter or theatrical glamour or tricks of the trade. The company faithfully and skilfully serves his intention. Eden End is no hell and no paradise, but just the house up the road where the old doctor lives.

Anonymous1934, Sep 15. WARNING TO WOMEN. The Manchester Guardian (1901-1959), 8.

(comedic piece about the terrible clothes and fashions in Eden End)

BROWN, I., 1934, Sep 16. "EDEN END.". The Observer (1901- 2003), 15. ISSN 00297712.

(description of plot)

“The serious issue of the play is the conflict of the sisters; smouldering in the first act, it blazes in the second. The cold flame of Lilian’s resentment is brilliantly kindled by Miss Alison Leggatt; Miss Beatrix Lehmann might sometimes have state her case with more vigour, but she had the right air of faded enchantment, and her home-sickness was truly of the heart…It is the lamp-light story of a home with exquisite fire-side groupings, a story which women will understand and appreciate, perhaps more than men. Were some of the conversations drawn tighter, the merit would make a more direct appeal.

Play Pictorial, H M. Walbrook Plays of the month

I spent a quieter but even more absorbed evening at the Duchess enjoying mr J. P. Priestley’s comedy, Eden End. Here again we were in Yorkshire, and the essential drama of the story was the unspoken love of a dear old doctor’s unmarried daughter, Lilian, for a gentleman in the neighbourhood and the ruin of her hopes by the arrival of her married sister, Stella, an actress, who is soon caught kissing the gentleman… [a slightly different interpretation but interesting] … The play is delightfully unconventional, and struck me as ringing entirely true. Everything that happened seemed like a piece of real life. It is also rich in humour… As the temperamental Stella, Miss Beatrix Lehmann is duly flamboyant in the self-conscious manner of a young woman to whom, as Shakespeare says, All the world’s a stage, and the minor parts are acted with equal care…

Play pictorial Nov 1934

Eden End  AMAZING photos

Play produced by Irene Hentschel (interesting as woman producer)

(description of plot with photos)

Mr Priestley’s genius in presenting the human drama within the four walls of a quite ordinary room is here seen at its best. The quiet satire, which is conveyed when the thoughtful and kindly doctor looking forward from what he considers the disturbed times of 1912 to the peace and order of the 1930s, when the children who he is helping into the world shall have grown up, is deadly. There are scenes poignant, as when Stella confesses her failures, there are scenes gay, as that one when the convivial Appleby talks to the Wilfred of the ways of women, there are scenes tender, as that exquisite one between the ageing doctor and his newly-found daughter, and through it all is a vibrant human note that makes us one with the family at Eden End.

Anonymous1935, Aug 17. WIRELESS NOTES. The Manchester Guardian (1901-1959), 12.

Yesterday’s Broadcast Pleasant Portion

Miss Barbara Couper’s new radio play Pleasant Portion was broadcast from the National last night. The title is taken from Jeremiah, They have made my pleasant portion a wilderness and the play has all the melancholy of the quotation. It is indeed one of the most cumulatively harrowing plays to which radio has given birth, and that not because it is sensational tragedy but because it is skilfully and subtly depressing and probable from beginning to end.

Mrs Craik the central character, admirably played by Gladys Young, is the dominating mother, who, after the death of her husband, succeeds in spoiling the love affairs of both her daughters. One daughter dies middle-aged and worn out; the other is still tied at the end of the play to the old routine, and the play closes as her tired, submissive voice is heard reading to her mother from the latest library book.

The particular merit of the play is the cleverness of the dialogue, in which the listener hears clearly all the shades of selfishness and self-interest disguised as sacrifice and suffering. In its theme and partly in the working-out the play is like that strong drama, The Silver Cord, but since it is written for the radio the special conditions of that medium make it seem to oppress the mind even more. It is certainly a  well constructed and economical radio play, even if some listeners may find that the thoroughness with which it keeps to the point makes it dismal hearing.
Miss Beatrix Lehmann as the daughter Carrie gives a strong impression of personality; her deep husky voice is excellently suited to broadcasting. Miss Joyce Bland as the other daughter was also good, and indicated cleverly the change from youth to a subdued middle age.

(wish I could hear this)

C, A.L., 1935, Oct 20. Films of the Week. The Observer (1901- 2003), 18. ISSN 00297712.

Passing on the third floor back Bethold Viertel, who made the Nova Pilbeam picture, Little friend, directed and I hardly see how he could have done his job better. The acting comes hardest on poor Conrad Veidt, the star, who, as the stranger has to invoke interest in a part that is naturally and benevolently incapable of any subtleties. Rene Ray, a round-eyed little thing with a lively face, has all the fat of the picture as the boarding-house slavey, but my personal fancy was for Miss Beatrix Lehmann, who plays the intellectual boarder with lots of intellect and the kind of reluctant pathos which delights me. I think you would enjoy the picture for her performance alone.

Pictures: Film Reviews - Passing of Third Floor Back. 1935. Variety (Archive: 1905-2000), 120(2), pp. 42.

Passing on the third floor back Beatrix Lehmann, in a carefully chastened version of the painted lady, is smartly intelligent but not always convincing…Drawing power of the book, the play, the picturization and the star should, on form, be invincible.

Anonymous1936, Jan 26. SUBURBS AND PROVINCES. The Observer (1901- 2003), 12. ISSN 00297712.

Passing on the third floor back “But it is the performance of Beatrix Lehmann as the Painted Lady and Rene Ray as the slavey, that really makes this film worth while.

Anonymous1936, Feb 02. Dramatis Personae. The Observer (1901- 2003), 15. ISSN 00297712.

Mr Hugh Ross Williamson, who has recently published an admirable life of James I, has written a special play, Various Heavens, for the Gate Theatre, where it will be produced by Mr Normal Marshall on February 12. Mr Williamson is a vigorous and witty writer whose work deserves a wider audience than the Gate is able to give it. The present production is doubly interesting since Miss Beatrix Lehmann is to take the principal part that of a woman in her thirties, faced with the conflicting claims of a lover twelve years her junior and her religion and work. Miss Lehmann, who is one of the three most brilliant actresses in England, has been away from the stage too long.

CHIT CHAT. 1936. The Stage (Archive: 1880-1959), (2), pp. 8.

Various Heavens

Beatrix Lehmann, who since Eden End, has been claimed by the films, will be seen again on the stage in Hugh Ross Williamson’s new play Various Heavens, which Norman Marshall is producing at the Gate Theatre on February 12. Miss Lehmann’s part is that of a woman in the thirties faced with the conflicting claims of a lover several years younger than herself, her religion, and her work.

Varous Heavens

The various heavens which this interesting play explores are the principles, conscious or instinctive by which its characters live. Compared and contrasted they enable the heroine to decide whether to resume the worthless young lover who fills her imagination to seek peace of mind in religion, or to devote herself to literature. Her spiritual adviser champions religion, it is his metier her uncle, a charming hedonist, opposes with secular counsel, but her lover’s shallow nature, which previously estranged them, forces her to decide in favour of single-purpose work.
Well drawn characters, who know the author’s mind and speak it clearly, convince us that the problem is both real and urgent. Miss Beatrix Lehmann whose composed intelligent acting persuades us that the heroine tackles her problem sincerely and resolves it sensibly, leads a company that keeps admirably within the limits of a good little play that is all the better for taking itself and us seriously.

 The Stage Feb 20 1936

The Gate Various Heavens

The theme of Hugh Ross Williamson’s latest play does not sound too engrossing when badly described. It is a study of a woman novelist of thirty-five faced with the conflicting claims of a lover several years younger than herself, her religion, and her work. One of her characters is that of Francis Meldreth, an elderly dilettante-hedonist who figured in the Seven deadly virtues, a previous play by the same author which was also produced at the Gate. In the present play Meldreth continues his role as raisonneur, and his views are generally interest. But one need not always agree with them.

Various heavens derives its title from the various heavens or refuges, spiritual or temporal, available to the somewhat complex artistic soul of Beatrix Musgrave, the middle-aged novelist. She had seduced her secretary – to use her own words – a rather commonplace, shallow young man of 22, who eventually marries his cousin. When, some time later, Beatrix has ideas of entering a convent, this is after a long talk she has with Father Bute and after much self-questioning on her part….

Such a wordy battle as this over a woman’s sexual relations [between two men! Not the woman and them] is lifted clean out of the commonplace by some fine writing and faithful character drawing. The author has the supreme art of making his audience think, and it is a tribute to his skill as a dramatist is creating real people…True he owes a great deal of the artistic success of his play to the fine acting of Beatrix Lehmann as the woman novelist. She has a keen comprehensive sense of the woman’s complex character, and her performance is admirably revealing. …

Variety May 6, 1936

Passing on the third floor back  film review

Among the stand out performance are those of Rene Ray as the slavey with a reformatory origin. Frank Cellier as the self-made slum magnate who tries to corrupt those around him with his wealth, Beatrix Lehmann as the caustic but witty tongued spinster whose main woe is the imminent loss of her looks, …

Variety Sept 26 1936

Norman Marshall anxious to present Beatrix Lehmann in Flames in sunlight (never heard of it!)

Oct 29 Charlotte Corday

The Stage

Beatrix Lehmann and Edward Chapman faithfully reproduce the author’s accounts of Charlotte and her victim, and in the long cast,…There was much applause at the close which the author duly acknowledged in a modest and pleasant speech.

A, D., 1936, Dec 09. "THE WITCH OF EDMONTON". The Manchester Guardian (1901-1959), 10.

Witch of Edmonton

“Neither can to-day’s audience, even an Old Vic audience, easily be impressed by a seventeenth century play that has no poetry, little craft and only an esoteric demonological appeal to recommend it…

In the characteristic intrigue of betrayal and murder Mr Marius Goring and Miss Beatrix Lehmann give livid performances…

The stage Dec 10 1936

Witch of Edmonton

In this part Edith Evans gave a performance of real power. Made up as hideous to look at, she poured forth the creature’s taunts, imprecations, and shrieks of fury or of terror with all the force of a real tragic actress, and thoroughly earned the ovation accorded her at the end of the evening…

There is also however, much more. Marius Goring, as the volatile and ill-fated Thornby, Beatrix Lehmann and Anna Konstam, as two of the victims of his wiles…

DEKKER, T. and DENIS, M.S., 1936, Dec 13. The Week's Cheatres. The Observer (1901- 2003), 15. ISSN 00297712.

Witch of Edmonton

States how in the day the Dog was the clown part and should have been funny, but here was interpreted as a symbol of mental and emotional conflict. “most Freudian spaniel, most psycho-analytic hound! Was anything less suggestive of Jacobean melodrama than such advice?...

Miss Beatrix Lehmann, as the sinful maid who masquerades as a boy, threw a strange and rather beautiful light across the dark surface of this melodrama. She somehow reminded us that Dekker was a poet and that the men of the period had a curious faculty for mixing poetry with piffle and serving the groundlings with better than they knew. Ivor Brown.

 

Anonymous1937, Feb 20. OUR LONDON CORRESPONDENCE. The Manchester Guardian (1901-1959), 12.

On Sunday evening two new plays will be experimentally produced. Mrs Steila Donisthorpe’s First night at the arts theatre, with that always interesting actress Miss Beatrix Lehmann…

A, D., 1937, Feb 22. LONDON ARTS THEATRE. The Manchester Guardian (1901-1959), 8.

In the old fashioned manner one might give a subtitle to the new fashioned play by Mrs Sheila Donsithorpe, produced at the Arts Theatre Tonight, and call it, First night, or the tribulations of a dentist’s daughter. Judith was a playwright who lived in Chiswick with her father, the dentist, her mother, who was a bridge-playing fiend and a snob, and an incompatible brother and sister with the accents of Oxford and Wandsworth respectively. As soon as the last panel patient had left the waiting room the table was cleared of its magazines and the family’s supper was laid, and as soon as supper was over Judith sat down to proceed with her play.

One night the manager of the local theatre came in with his handsome producer and told Judith that she had written a Winner which was to be produced without delay or formality. The play was presented, a delightful rehearsal scene showing under what difficulties. Four months later, with Judith’s play still running successfully, we saw her still writing, though her mother wanted the house for a bridge party, and there seemed no reason in nature why the prosperous girl could not take a flat of her own. Her father, a man so gentle that he would have chosen a far more propitious moment, had died in the very hour of her first theatrical triumph, and she had nothing left to live for except film rights and the question which the handsome producer popped at curtain-fall.

Mrs Donisthorpe implies that her heroine’s one failing was the inability to write a love scene. She must look to her own attainment in the matter. No lover should, especially a dentist’s daughter, talk of “that toothache of the should called loneliness”. The play is chiefly noteworthy for the devastating verisimilitude of the rehearsal scene, which is its second act. Miss Sunday Wilshin here excelled as a leading lady too languid even for temperament. The less theatrical portions of the play were fortunately in the cunning hands of Miss Beatrix Lehmann, who, though she is best at home in a masterpiece, could make something urgent and arresting out of much poorer matter than she had here.

[Interesting to note this is the 2^nd time in a year Bea plays a woman author on stage]

Anonymous1937, Jul 04. Dramtis Personae. The Observer (1901- 2003), 17. ISSN 00297712.

The next Embassy production is to be a comedy, Up the garden path by Mr Ireland Wood, from a story by Mr Richard Crompton, this Tuesday. It was produced some time ago by the Repatory players under the title, Charity begins- It has an interesting cast that includes Miss Beatrix Lehmann, Miss Muriel, Aked, and Mr William Fox.

THE EMBASSY. 1937. The Stage (Archive: 1880-1959), (2), pp. 10.

Up the garden path

On Tuesday evening, July 6, the Embassy Play Producing Society, Ltd, presented the comedy, in three acts, by Ireland Wood from a story by Richmal Crompton, entitlted…

Daker Francis Waring
Henry Deveral Archibald Batty

Judy Deveral Patricia Hilliard

Emil Deveral Margaret Rutherford

Agnes Deveral Marjorie Fielding

Rodney Wlaters William Fox

Bobbie Forrester Bruce Lister
Miss Case Muriel Aked

Mrs Deveral Elliot Mason

Catherine Deveral Beatrix Lehmann

Play produced by Murray Macdonald.

This play (which appears to be an altered version of Charity begins, produced by  the Repatory players on Jan 12, 1936) deals with a day in the life of the Deveral family at their country house in Little marvel. It is the day of their annual fete, and in all the excitement of preparation an erring daughter of the house comes in – the daughter who twenty years ago ran away from home with a married man. She is welcomed only by her crotchety old mother and her young niece. Her sister and brother are horrified at the thought of her past. Her niece is in danger of behaving foolishly with a young man employed in the house, but she is saved by the wisdom of her aunt, who explains to her what exactly happened twenty ears ago. The curtain falls on the whole family reunited.

The comedy is well written and the characters are life-like. Each is in his or her own way a very amusing study of clearly defined types which one may meet in any village or country town. The dialogue is bright and keeps the audience in laughter. Where the play rather fails is in the slightness of the plot and the lack of definite action. The first act, with its hint of a love affair between Judy and Rodney and the sudden return of Catherine, is full of promise, but the second act concerns itself a good deal with trivialities, which, although very amusing, holds the interest of the audience spasmodically. It is not until near the end of the third act that we are show then author’s intentions as to the fate of his characters, and then Judy’s action in regard to Rodney seems a little unreal even for a young girl of her emotional type. The dramatic scene between Judy and Catherine is well written but the play would have been less unconvincing if we had been shown more of the suggested liaison between Judy and Rodney. Nevertheless the general impression of the play was one of much humour and clever characterisation.

The company grasp the opportunities for character acting that the author gives them. Frances Wareing makes a fine study of Daker, the dour family servant. Archibald batty, as the pompous and rather futile old bachelor son is realistic. Patricia Hilliard imparts freshness and youth to her part, and rises to a height of emotional acting in her big scene in the last act. Margaret Rutherford is delightful in her amusing and convincing study of the muddle-headed old sister, and delivers her lines with full point. Marjorie Fielding is effective as the prim, hard and stern disciplinarian who endeavours to rule the household with a rod of iron. She makes her strength felt whenever she is on the stage. … Beatrix Lehmann as the erring daughter, brings charm to her part. She is particularly good in the scene when Catherine tells Judy what really happened when she ran away. Her reading of the character has wisdom and charm.

Anonymous1937, Nov 15. OUR LONDON CORRESPONDENCE. The Manchester Guardian (1901-1959), 8.

Friday brings a reversion to tragedy, with the first performance in England of Mr Euegene O’Neill’s Mourning becomes Electra. Lengthy plays become Mr O’Neill, and this one is said to extend over fully four hours. This is to be seen at the Westminster, and the distinguished cast is headed by Miss Beatrix Lehmann, who was so memorably good in Mr Priestly’s Eden End.

A, D., 1937, Nov 20. "MOURNING BECOMES ELECTRA". The Manchester Guardian (1901-1959), 12.

Mourning Becomes Electra

Until we get time to see his aim and purpose, Mr O’Neill’s tragical trilogy, Mourning becomes Electra, which has reached London at last by way of the Westminster Theatre, is not without its fun. Are not these New Englanders of the year 1865 a little too serious to be taken seriously? In the words of another American, they are neither man nor woman, they are neither beast nor human, they are ghouls. Is not the young woman called Vinnie, whose mother murders her father, a little too like Judy Smallweed in the way she stalks into this bleak house with its high-backed chairs and its general gloom? And do not those family portraits too resolutely resemble the famous picture of the head warder of Van Gough’s Asylum?
Quite early on, however, these questions are answered with a firm Hellenic negative. The Mannons’ house has a severe Greek portico. The great front door yawns like doom itself, and three Doric pillars flank it on either side. Vinnie is Electra, her brother is Orestes, her father and mother are Agamemnon and Clytemnestra all over again. And Aesthesis reappears as the captain of a clipper.

Mr O’Neil has followed the Aeschylean plot with a startling fidelity. Professor Gilbert Murry, in the preface to Euripedes’s version of the story, gives in the following passage an exact epitome of the present play as we now have it. “The sister is the central figure of the tragedy. A woman shattered in childhood by the shock of an experience too terrible for a girl to bear, a poisoned and a haunted woman, eating her heart in ceaseless broodings of hate and love, alike unsatisfied – hate against her mother and her stepfather, love for her dead father and her brother in exile; a woman who has known luxury and state, and cares much for them; who is intolerant of poverty and who feels her youth passing away”.

The parallel cannot, of course, be wholly exact. Vinnie and her brother are dreadfully attended by ghosts and by a suggestion of illicit passion instead of those Aeschylean furies who cannot be reproduced in modern terms. The Hamlet note reminds us, too, that this play’s Orestes is such a prince confronted with a mother who is Claudius and Gertrude in one.

The play, though it runs to four and a half hours, was received with intense interest because, given the present action and production, it is a great drama, with the full impact of the Greek originals. Miss Laura Cowie plays Clytemnestra with far more riot and luxurious remorse than she has ever dealt to Gertrude in the past. Miss Beatrix Lehmann as the unmated Electra moves about like a white-hot poker and keeps up this metaphor amazingly. Mr Robert Harris and Mr Reginald Tate have the right foredoom about them, and the stage pictures are grandly sombre and inexorable.