## Miss Mary Merrall's Achievement.

MISS MARY MERRALL'S work in the curious "ghost play" at the Kingsway Theatre last night takes her a distinct step forward.

Her performance of the woman whose love survived blows and ill-treatment, even after her husband's death, was sincere and touching, and compelling because of its

MISS MARY MERRALL.

beautiful restraint. Her whimpering cry for her daughter during that weird scene when her "man" returned for one hour to earth sent a thrill of extraordinary reality through the whole audience.

## Welcome Earnestness.

IT is, an absorbing play, over-ambitious, perhaps, in its attempt to introduce the supernatural; but it contains what the whole of our stage needs to-day, and seems gradually to be gaining since the mediocre productions of the war period—that is, earnestness of effort in playing and in producing.

And I don't say that because the "high-brows, booming their "Marvellous!" and "Extraordinary!" were in full force in last night's audience.

One thing that jarred was the attempt of some of the players—not Miss Merrall and Mr. Henry Caine—to reproduce the Cockney accent. All their "a's" became capital "I's."

Lambeth's "Solomon."

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## KINGSWAY THEATRE.

### "The Daisy."

The excellent acting of Mr. Henry Caine, Miss Mary Merrall, Miss Suzanne Sheldon, Miss Alice Mansfield and Mr. Dennis Wyndham secured a favourable reception for "The Daisy" so long as it remained on the realistic plane; though it was at no time apparent why we should be expected to take interest in such a despicable and futile ruffian as the man who is known by that nickname. But when realism was abandoned, and we were transported to a sort of heavenly police-court, where ridiculous sentences are passed upon suicides, the temperature of the house perceptibly cooled, and the applause became hesitating and formal. These symbolic or transcendental scenes are characterised by nothing but wearisome and pretentious ineptitude. The author, F. Molnar, is, I understand, a Hungarian; the adapters are Messrs. Osmond, Shillingford and A. L. Ellis. From an artistic point of view, they have certainly wasted their labour in importing such twaddle, and it is hard to believe that even from the business point of view they have been profitably employed. It remains to be said that in the very imaginative staging of the heavenly police-court the hand of Miss Edith Craig was pleasantly apparent.

W. A.

## NINE IN ONE ROOM.

the board of directors was accepted at the same meeting.

## ROMANCE OF UNDERWORLD.

### Success of Master Criminal Play at Kingsway Theatre-

*By Our Dramatic Critic.*

"The Daisy," the new play at Kingsway Theatre last night, is an essay in human interest. Its authors have gone to the underworld in their desperate search for romance, and have not been unsuccessful.

There is no poetry in the play, but there is a great deal of reality. The gum-chewing, teetotal villain—the master mind in crime—is certainly a person whom we should like to see in the United States or anywhere else—except in England.

May Merrall endowed Julia with a sense of every-day beauty, such as one meets in the street.

As for Mr. Henry Caine, in the title rôle, there is certainly a distinguished future in front of him, even if he decides to remain in the relatively honest business of play acting.

12

# “THE DAISY.”

## A PLAY OF ROUNDABOUTS AND PURGATORY AT THE KINGSWAY.

<table><tr><td>"The Daisy"</td><td>Henry Caine.</td></tr><tr><td>Flimmer</td><td>Denis Wyndham.</td></tr><tr><td>Inspector</td><td>G. Dickson-Kenwin.</td></tr><tr><td>Factory Manager</td><td>Frank Lovett.</td></tr><tr><td>Carpenter</td><td>J. Leslie Frith.</td></tr><tr><td>Julia</td><td>Mary Merrall.</td></tr><tr><td>Maria</td><td>Gladys Gordon.</td></tr><tr><td>Mrs. Muscat</td><td>Suzanne Sheldon.</td></tr><tr><td>Mrs. Hunter</td><td>Alice Mansfield.</td></tr></table>

Signs of an understanding heart are not lacking in “The Daisy,” but the mind of the author is a doubtful quantity.

This new play at the Kingsway is described as “A Legend of the Roundabouts,” founded on the original of F. Molnar by Osmond Shillingford and A. L. Ellis. It would be interesting to know exactly what was the work of each.

Who, for instance, was responsible for the portrait of the Daisy himself? The intelligent observation of the gipsy temperament most probably belonged to the Hungarian writer, but its translation into a Hampstead Heath type is no less an achievement, one would imagine.

Then, in a carping spirit, we would like to know who invented the elaborate “preparation” for the attempted murder. Even a stage expert might have been expected to realise that artless references to a newly sharpened knife have the effect nowadays of making an audience conscientiously object to acts of violence.

And before the final curtain our questionings resolve themselves into one insistent “Why?” After an opening in which we had found delight because of the understanding shown of simple hearts and minds, the authors make heaven open through a photographers' backcloth, and treat us to a vision of purgatory contrived after the pattern of a “Welfare Centre.”

Yet “The Daisy” should be seen if only to be disagreed with. Apart from the skill with which some of the types are drawn, the acting of Miss Mary Merrall, Mr. Henry Caine, Miss Suzanne Sheldon, Miss Alice Mansfield, and Miss Gladys Gordon has a merit that the playgoer cannot afford to miss.

M. W. D.

# 'THE DAISY' AT KINGSWAY THEATRE.

## HARRY CAINE AND MARY MERRALL IN REAL MELODRAMA.

What was up to a point a capital little old-fashioned crime-and-circus melodrama-of a type more familiar a generation ago than now-with a "mystical" tag to it for more modern consumption, "The Daisy," last night's play at the Kingsway Theatre, was by no means without interest.

Above all, it gave two of our younger players, Mr. Henry Caine and Miss Mary Merrall, an opportunity for some of the best melodramatic acting to be seen in town.

It is a story of a roundabout-minder on "the Heath," called "the Daisy" (Mr. Henry Caine), who marries a servant girl (Miss Mary Merrall), and loses his job. Not being able to get work, he is tempted by a "crook" friend (Mr. Dennis Wyndham) to join in an attack upon a factory manager, and, rather than be taken, stabs himself.

## THE "MAGISTER."

Whilst his body lies dead in a little shanty his soul is seen being questioned, as in a police-court, by a dimly-robbed-shape, called "the magister."

In this spiritual court "The Daisy" is doomed to suffer for every harsh thought of those he had left behind and to be made happy by every tender one during fourteen years, after which he is to be allowed to return upon a visit to earth.

When he arrives in the last act he finds that he has a daughter whom his widow has brought up in the belief that her father was everything that was good. The returned spirit tries to change the girl's opinion, but is told to go away by the mother who does not recognise him!

The earlier, frankly melodramatic scenes were, on the whole, a good deal better than the rather pinchbeck spirituality of the "other side," but all through the acting of Mr. Caine and Miss Merrall was delightfully genuine and appealing.

Miss Suzanne Sheldon, too, did wonderfully well as the proprietress of the roundabout--also in love with "the Daisy." Miss Edith Craig is to be complemented upon an excellent "production."

S. R. L.

### MISS MARY MERRALL.

## Welcome Earnestness.

IT is an absorbing play, over-ambitious, perhaps, in its attempt to introduce the supernatural; but it contains what the whole of our stage needs to-day, and seems gradually to be gaining since the mediocre productions of the war period—that is, earnestness of effort in playing and in producing.

Lambeth's "Solomon."

KINGSWAY THEATRE

"The Daisy."

The excellent acting of Mr. Henry Caine, Miss Mary Merrall, Miss Suzanne Sheldon, Miss Alice Mansfield and Mr. Dennis Wyndham secured a favourable reception for "The Daisy", so long as it remained on the realistic plane; though it was at no time apparent why we should be expected to take interest in such a despicable and futile ruffian as the man who is known by that nickname. But when realism was abandoned, and we were transported to a sort of heavenly police-court, where ridiculous sentences are passed upon suicides, the temperature of the house perceptibly cooled, and the applause became hesitating and formal. These symbolic or transcendental scenes are characterised by nothing but wearisome and pretentious ineptitude. The author, F. Molnar, is, I understand, a Hungarian; the adapters are Messrs. Osmond Shillingford and A. L. Ellis. From an artistic point of view, they have certainly wasted their labour in importing such twaddle, and it is hard to believe that even from the business point of view they have been profitably employed. It remains to be said that in the very imaginative staging of the heavenly police-court the hand of Miss Edith Craig was pleasantly apparent.

W. A.

NINE IN ONE ROOM.

“THE DAISY.”

PLAY LIKE A NIGHTMARE AT
THE KINGSWAY.

A grisly scene in the spirit world was
unexpectedly sprung on the audience at
the Kingsway Theatre last night in the
middle of a new play, "The Daisy," which
had hitherto shown no disposition towards
the supernatural. It did not impart the
expected thrill, principally because the
difficult scenic effects were almost unob-
tainable on so small a stage.

The Daisy was the nickname of a
young East End ne'er-do-well—a cockney
Lothario of the roundabouts and coconut
shies of Hampstead Heath. Two-thirds of
the play dealt with the Daisy's criminal
associations and his miserable married life
with a girl who loved him much as the
dog loved Bill Sikes.

So far so good. Cockney characters have
not often been better played than they
were last night, and the East End scenes
were artistically presented, with admir-
able underworld scenery by a woman
artist, Miss Clare Atwood.

Then, suddenly, the drama became a
nightmare. The Daisy, having stabbed
himself to the heart to escape arrest for
attempted murder, was translated from
his deathbed to the "Other Side."

There, amid Maskelynish surroundings of
black draperies and limelight, he appeared
before three purple-grey figures, theatrically
suggestive of the Holy Trinity. A sepul-
chral Voice cross-examined him on his
earthly misdeeds, and denounced him as
disobedient and rebellious.

After fourteen years in the Unknown the
Daisy was permitted by his spirit judges to
return to earth for an hour, in order to
work out his redemption, and the curtain
fell on his widow praying for mercy on his
soul.

Mr. Henry Caine and Miss Mary Merrall
played the parts of the Daisy and his wife
so extraordinarily well that they almost
gave actuality to a work in which, in any
circumstances, there could be little sense of
conviction.

A. H.

THE "NEW WHIRLIGIG."