ROUEN REVUE

Except when Lena Ashwell comes with her English concert-party, evening entertainments—that is, public entertainments—in Rouen are limited by some cinemas and two theatres that stage revue. The cinemas are like all other cinemas, except that the humour is broader and sexual intrigue is shown in a more fleshly and passionate form. The audience differs from an English, not in that flirtation is more fierce, but in the running fire of comment directed at the film, and from the way in which crises in the plot are hailed. Everyone smokes who has the habit. The women who do not, masticate noisily at sweets. The girls in the front row of stalls playfully pull the hair of the orchestra, specialising in the 'cello: his deep, detached notes amuse them. This is their way of showing he attracts their attention. The conductor is the pianist too. In his dual capacity he displays astounding resource and agility. The combination of these functions is diverting, even in an Englishman. The films present a preponderance of carnal domestic problems.

Revue is another story. An Englishman has no right to attend French revue without being prepared to discount it at a rate governed by the difference between the national temperaments. Where English revue suggests and insinuates, French explicates the detail. French insinuates too, on occasion, but with the motive of subtlety as distinct from that of English furtiveness: the difference between cleverness and morbidity. All this applies to amours, chiefly between the already-married. French revue goes further, and deals disgustingly in physiological detail which the English stage declines to handle even by implication. And the ladies on the stage are obviously amused by the cruder passages to an unprofessional degree. They giggle outright. The work on the stage, in fact, is curiously informal. Dialogue sotto voce in the corners is not make-believe—nor rehearsed. They carry on a genuine conversation, much of which is criticism of their colleagues at work, much personal comment on the advanced rows of the audience. A French company is never afraid to let you know that, after all, it's only acting you're looking at. English downrightness would maintain the delusion at all costs.

A lot of improvisation goes on—some by choice, some of necessity. French versatility flashes out brilliantly here and there with something that's not in the book; and when a fellow's memory fails he improvises with convincing readiness. There's no such thing as a breakdown, though revue here runs for so long a season that actors might easily be forgiven for growing too stale to improvise. But that they avert by the habit of improvisation from choice.

When, therefore, there comes a "turn" which purports to be classical poses, the effect is blasphemous rather than ludicrous. The spectacle of thick-painted whores clutching clumsily at the spirit of Greek motion and Greek suspension-of-motion, with their lewd simperings and vulgar disproportion of bust, is repellent. At the critical moment someone giggles in the wings and the goddess baulks. The orchestra swells to cover the gaping hiatus which no improvisation can bridge. The Salome-dance and the ballet are quite other things. They perform them here to perfection. Their temperament provides the abandon without which such turns fall stodgy. But classical poses? No!—hardly that!

A French audience in war-time clamours for a military turn or two; and gets them. There's a scene from the trenches presented with a convincing sort of realism—from the death of a comrade to the exchange of fornicatory ribaldries and the pursuit of vermin. Asphyxiation is effected, not by the enemy, but by the corporal's removing his boots. The humour is broad and killing. Shrieking applause drowns half the repartee. Judged by the accompanying gesture, some obviously good things are missed. The delivery of the mail under the parapet, and its perusal, leave little doubt as to the proper function of la bonne marraine—the fair unknown correspondent acquired by advertisement.

Then there is a turn military which discloses the nature of the friendly encounters between the Poilu and the girls of the village through which he is passing.

There is some really good singing. And there is always a song in English, delivered with a naÏve crudity of pronunciation, to which the English soldiers respond at the chorus with allied fervour. "The Only Girl," "Who were you with Last Night?" "Here we are Again," are the favourites.

The ushers are girls. They know how to keep in order the crowd of lewd French youths in spirited attire who affect the pit, who, without restraint, would make the place unbearable. Mostly the ushers do it with their tongues; where these weapons fail they cuff them, and cuff them hard—no mere show of violence. The French termagant is a fearsome creature. She's here, and she's conducting on the tram-cars. There she is a match for any man. No lout is free to dispute her authority. She always emerges from a battle of words master of the situation. Master is the word. The conductors are the only girls (though mostly women) in Rouen who are not pretty as a class. Individuals are, but the class is unsexed, growing moustaches which are often more than incipient. The only womanly thing about them is their black dress and perky, red-edged cap. They give the impression that they would do well in the trenches. The theatre ushers—who are "chuckers-out" too—are less masculine and less plain-featured. The management chooses them with half an eye to feature, with a regard chiefly to physical strength. The tramways manager lays no store by looks. Why should he? Good looks don't draw custom on the cars. But he does ensure that they shall be able to take care of themselves, and "boss" the vehicle.