Word: distaff
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...Distaff Side" received a rather warm reception in New York and New York is said to be a critical town in its sophisticated way. The gentlemen of the press did not attack the play with any violence, they didn't damn it with faint praise, they just accepted it as the solution of the rather considerable problem of Aunt Matilda making her annual pilgrimage to the theatre. "The Distaff Side" remains that sort of play and since Boston seems to contain more Aunt Matildas than New York it should be liked in this cultural center...
Rumor has been unkind to this play for it has said that it is a good play. If you want to enjoy "The Distaff Side" don't go to it with that misapprehension--it's a nice play and Dame Sybil Thorndike must be a very nice woman. It's a reassuring play for it demonstrates with properly repressed vigor that the home is the thing, that women make the home, and therefore women are the thing. It has many nice women in it the grandmother is gruff and self-centered but an fond she is really nice. The middle...
...paradoxical subject "When is a Play not a Play?" will be discussed by John van Druten on Monday, under the auspices of the Dramatics Club. An English playwright novelist, and poet of note, Mi. van Druten is the author of the comedy "The Distaff Side," which evening of February 4, with Dame Sybil Thorndike in the leading role. He is also the author of the new play "Flowers of the Forest," which will be produced and acted by Katherine Cornell this February, in New York City...
Dame Sybil in The Distaff Side is the keystone of an upper middle-class family of women. To her ancient and churlish mother (Mildred Natwick) she shows unremitting forbearance. To her fretful and uncertain sisters and daughter she imparts a philosophy distilled from long and loving communion with her late husband. One by one problems are solved. The daughter (Viola Keats) leaves the man who can further her ambitions for the man she loves. One sister (Estelle Wynwood) foregoes an unseemly dalliance, returns to the old romance that time has almost staled. The other sister (Viola Roache) finds it easier...
What keeps The Distaff Side from slip ping into mawkishness is Sybil Thorndyke who seems to imbue her acting with a extraordinary personal warmth and to make the play a cameo-clear portrait of a fine and gracious woman...