Evening star., 1940-10-22

but only badly enough to spend
their time picking up driftwood
and dead birds, in the case of one,
and to stare at the Thames through
a telescope in the case of the other
A third is a retired chorus girl who
has a lot more real estate, bonds
and jewels to show for her particu-
lar talent than the contemporary
stars of her sex have to show for
theirs. The fourth and most i'm
portant is the elder sister Of the
harmless lunatics and the COM
panion of the old chorus girl. There
is also a maid. She is touched
chiefly by the sight of the crimi-
nally inclined nephew of the luna
tics in that lonely spot in the coun-
try. The other character is a nun
from convent up the road, fine
person and rather funny one to be
found in that company.
What happens-but not why, or
who, or anything like that's that
the old chorus girl runs nice, quiet,
orderly place in her "old house on
the marshes of the Thames estuary
some 10 miles to the east of Graves
end" She gets furious at the potty
sisters, especially the Oldest one, who
is constantly filling the living room
with driftwood, sea gulls which died
young. pretty shells and similar
trinkets from the river shore. For
having so little hospitality. she ends
up by being murdered, her body
placed in the oven just off the living
room. where the monks made bread
in the reign of Henry w. 1--WE
may be wrong on the w, but it was
Henry.
Having been so neatly disposed
of, one would think even a once
overactive chorus girl would call
it a day. Not Leonora Fiske. With
those mad, mad people enjoying the
fruit of her genius, she is the most
restless ghost since Red Grange.
She comes through the bricked-up
door of the oven plays snatches of
Gilbert and Sullivan on the piano,
dons wig and some of her some
what gaudy clothes and frightens
the wits out of her killer.
X X X
It's sinister all right. Contribut-
ing chiefly to this aspect is Miss
Robson. Between the lunatic sisters,
the bouncing old harridan who has
to be killed, the criminal nephew,
she has a lot of disagreeable or
ghastly things to do. She goes
about them all with a refined re-
pugnance that makes each doubly
gruesome Ladies in Retirement"
is Miss Robson's first theater ap-
pearance in this country. 1t would
be a crime worse than that in the
play should it be allowed to be her
last.
Estelle Winwood, looking like a
first edition of Ophelia, makes the
batty sister who glances through
the telescope one of the fine comedy
characters of make-believe madness.
She is no whit better at the work,
however, than is JeSsamine New
combe. Miss Newcombe plays the
sister who collects driftWood and
the bodies Of birds. Funny as they
are, let it be said, their vagaries
suggest that Miss Fiske was not
without justification in wishing,
until she died. that they had never
come to her house.
Isobel Elsom, who spends the last
two acts as body in the oven,
makes her stretch as Miss Fiske a
thing of absolute perfection. In
her somewhat dilapidated grandeur,
she makes it quite clear that the
old boys who gave her the bonds,
jewels. etc. were mined by one of
the great gold diggers of her time.
Xxx X 4
The only completely odious char
acter of the lot is the nephew,
played with q nice fair by Patrick
OMoore; a flair which makes it
easy to explain the infatuation of
the maid, who is done to a turn by
Rosanna Seaborn.
Gilbert Miller has produced the
play of Edward Percy and Reginald
Denham with q good taste that
covers every crime in the book;
the specific book, Ladies in Re-
tirement," of course. Any old night
is a fine night for a murder of the
kind which takes place at the Ma
l., ~lr