REVIEW - Weston Mercury and Somersetshire Herald Friday May 1st 1964 - MOVING DRAMA OF A TRUE-LIFE STORY

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'THE BARRETTS OF WIMPOLE STREET' HAS CHARM AND COLOUR

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This week, in the present four-week season of amateur drama at the Playhouse, comes the much-publicised presentation of The Barretts of Wimpole Street by Weston-super-Mare Dramatic Society. This is a true-life story re-created in dramatic form - a most moving experience which the Society handles with a great deal of charm and colour.

Appraisal of the production must, to a great degree, be a measure of how well the players have grasped their roles as well as an estimate of its entertainment value.

        Rewarding Role

Nina Rees has the difficult but most rewarding task of playing Elizabeth, and she does it with the spirit and sincerity typical of the young woman. She was frail but with immense vitality, and this comes over.

It was a riding accident which injured her spine and confined her to a sick room, but it was a great deal of hysteria and neuroses common to the period which led her and her family to expect nothing but death. Her almost miraculous recovery on her marriage points to the exaggeration of her condition. Miss Rees could convey more of this fragility in the first act and so make the resurgence of her spirit in the later scenes more effective.

The conflict with her father, played by Paul Dening, is excellently staged with splendid tension, and Elizabeth Kay is most convincing - if a little bit bouncingly out of period - as the rebellious Henrietta. Mr. Dening is not afraid to earn hostility - as well as admiration - as the fanatical tyrant that Edward Barrett was, but he does not reveal all the depths of his attitude to Elizabeth. As she says in the play, he is different from other men, "dreadfully different," and this is missing from Mr. Dening's performance.

        Impulsive Honesty

In the role of Browning, Brian Morton-Hicks has gone for the poet's most obvious traits - his impulsive honesty and complete admiration for Elizabeth. In this the portrait is strong. He assails her with a flood of persuasive words - he was reputedly awkward in speech and gesture - and the romance, intolerable in such a household, blossoms. Mr. Hicks does not wear his clothes easily and here again a sense of the period and its manners is not strong.

Some of the best moments in this respect are brought by Thelma Trapnell as Arabel, with a good sense of quiet dignity, and the five brothers, Gregory Thacker, Malcolm Smith, Rolf Gooderham, Keith Wallens and Tony Smith.

        Excellent Small Parts

Neville Redman plays Dr. Chambers; M. Leighton Norman, Dr. Ford-Waterlow; Clive Darke, Captain Cook; Tony Hayman, Mr. Bevan; and Valerie Irlam, the maid, Wilson. Although brief in appearance, many of these parts are large in portrayal. Mary Mee sustains her chatterbox role of Bella admirably, and Tessa of Merill behaved with absolute decorum on the first night as Elizabeth's pet, Flush.

John Hess's production has a splendid setting though, perhaps, a little brightly lit for the sickly medical atmosphere and closed curtains.

Playing their important part back stage are Paul King (stage manager), George Hastings and Mike Holder (assistants), Maureen Russell (continuity), Clive Boot (make-up), Trudy Findlay (wardrobe mistress), Jenny Briggs (properties), N. Leighton Norman (business manager) and Clive Darke (publicity).

The production continues to-night and to-morrow, when there is also a matinee performance.                                       R.M.D.