Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), Wednesday 2 February 1944, page 9


REVIVAL OF "THE

PATSY"

Barry Connors' wise-cracking

comedy, "The Patsy"- virtually Cin-derella made salty and brought up to date - began a season of early even-ing performances at" the Theatre Royal yesterday. With the minor qualifications that every player painted a caricatured role with one brush and one colour, it successfully ran through its course of domestic wrangling, unsisterly sistership, and love-making to formula.

Each part needed some occasional change in tempo, at least a few vari-ations in colour, to maintain it with-out monotony through three acts. As the elder sister, Queenie Ashton over-drew her quota of hardness and malice. As the father, Marshall

Crosby too often strove to win domes-tic arguments by shouting his oppo-sition down. As the mother, Leal Douglas was perpetually acting the family football, with "the best years of my life," and the like, as her favourite expressions of self-pity.

Kitty Bluett, in the title role, was inclined to over-exercise her engag-

ing faculty for playing the bashful little girl, who is afraid she is always putting her foot in it. Otherwise, she excelled in a role which allows her to quote repartee and potted proverbs from a "personality" book.

Apart from the wit the playwright

allotted her to attract her audience she revealed, on her own merits, the skill and enthusiam to enlist her audience's appreciation. As her tutor in man-getting, Hal Lashwood was a wéll-chosen foil.

Except for the minor faults in the colouring of their parts, Mr. Crosby, Miss Douglas, and Miss Ashton pro- ceeded with, lively certainty to fill out the pattern of an enjoyable show.