New Play in Manhattan

St. Helena (By R. C. Sherriff and Jeanne de Casalis; Max Gordon, producer). This play by the author of Journey's End presents British Actor Maurice Evans in a quiet, minutely drawn portrayal of Napoleon Bonaparte's last years on the rocky island of St. Helena. With his handful of faithful generals, the exiled emperor arrives with a grim swagger, never doubting that he will soon be leaving as he left Elba. At once he foregoes his precious daily ride on horseback when he learns that a British guard must accompany him. But hope springs up when he reads of riots in Paris.

Trouble continues with the British, who tighten their watch and insist, on calling the prisoner simply General Bonaparte.

Napoleon makes his harassed but pompous jailer, Sir Hudson Lowe (Percy Waram), wait for an interview, refuses finally to see him at all. At a birthday dinner, he wonders if he had not better died after one of his victories. The ensuing discussion is interrupted by an earthquake.

The solidarity of the little group begins to splinter. The generals complain of pains and illness, long to be away. The faithful Corsican attendant Cipriani (Jules Epailly) dies. Las Cases (Alan Wheatley), smugly cherishing his biographical notes, is sent away by the British --without his notes. Gourgaud (Joseph Macaulay), sulking like a jealous mistress when anyone else approaches his idol, finds his lot unendurable, weeps, departs. Suffering from confinement and a bad liver, Napoleon is haunted at night by the spectres of his mistakes. He cannot forget, he says, that if he had not attacked so soon at Waterloo, he would have had 12,000 more men. The imperial manners gradually give way to those of a lonely and embittered country squire.

Feeling death upon him at last, he hears that a comet has appeared in the sky.

"There was a comet when Caesar died," he recalls. The comet turns out to be only a meteor. "We shall have to die without a comet," muses Napoleon Bonaparte. The play ends with Marchand reading to him from the wars of Hannibal.

Assembled with Producer Gordon's customary lavishness, effectively mounted and costumed by Jo Mielziner, St. Helena naturally invites comparison with Manhattan's other current play about a famed historical character, Victoria Regina.

Whereas the latter gains pace by compressing a whole career into ten scenes, Mr. Sherriff's play loses it by stretching a single phase over eleven scenes. St. Helena is one of those plays which seems to gain stature in remembrance, with the sidelights dimmed and the details fused into a moving portrait of a crumbling conqueror, resigned but unrepentant, who clings to his destiny and keeps his iron soul to himself to the end.

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