Evening star., 1948-08-04

audience Miss Bergner and the
, audience clearly were delighted with
each other, which, in one way or
another, may be an answer to those
who see the theater dying for lack
of new ideas.
( Patiently. all the theater needs is
Elisabeth Bergner in Escape Me
Never Tactful correspondents do
not go around saying how many
years this is what it has had.
None of this is intended to depre-
cate the pleasure of seeing Miss
Bergner and her play again. They
are a delightful combination, still
capable of evoking the echo of every
ones old, lost laughter. In truth,
they are more than the fond re-
membrance of things past, Tor 1t is
part of Miss Bergners magic to
suggest that there is something
fresh about this; that it is not pre-
cisely as you saw it before.
There even are moments when
other members of the cast suggest
that il is not quite the way they
went through it in the flnal re-
hearsal a few hours before opening
It gives Escape Me Never live
illness that probably explains why
if never becomes old, and audiences
never become tired.
The play at the Olney Is un-
ouallfiedlv Miss Bergners show. II
is a tale of urchin love which no
other actress knows how to tell.
Other stars have had tnelr turns
al Gemma Jones, but she remains
sinpularlv Indifferent to them. Her
fiery. amoral gypsy heart remains
as loval to Miss Bergner as 1t does
to the wild. wavward Sebastian,
the plays hero who finally traps
her into fidelity.
There is nothing anyone can do
about this and if movie producers
ever turn smart. they Will stop
interrupting the natural alliance
between Miss Bergner and Comma.
That the two are one is instantly
apparent when Miss Bergner hlngs
herself into the heretofore quiet
salon of the Palazzo Neroni ~ the
first scene of Escape Me Never.
Here. indeed, is the constant nymph
tthe unchanging f1gment OF MISS
kennedv's imagination) and from
the moment of her appearance,
there is no question why her popu-
larity never WaneS.
Gemma is an amusing girl and
If tragedy is stalking her, as II
patentlv is, there is something en-
viable about her She operates on
the theory that the conventions OF
polite society are absurd, and those
of courtship even more so. She
chooses to live by her wits, even
to the point of shaking down
convent to get food when conditions
become that dire.
AS for men, she expects nothing
of them in the way of responsibility
and decencv. She does, however,
recognize that there are great diff
ferences in the quality Of compan-
ionship as between one man and
another. 1t is this that inspires
her to experiment until one day
she comes up with Sebastian San
ger, who represents the essence OF
living, from joy to death.
This Gemma provides a use Tor
each trick in Miss Bergner's mex
haustible bag. She demands the
showing of a kind of primitive in
nocence, balanced by dramatic
measure of highly developed guile.
She hopes highly of Sebastian and
really expects very little She is
soft enough to want to help him
and hard enough to know that his
kind takes as much joy from the
world as his best music puts into
1t She cannot give him up aud
vet she would like to push him over
the most convenient precipice.
She is. as anyone can see, as
busy character as any author ever
put upon the stage, but Miss Berg
ner plays her with vitality thai
by now has become second nature
and a kind of institution in the
theater. A quite happy kind, 1t
need not be said
The basic company in this Elisa
beth Bergner flying circus is wisely