The Browning Version

Terence Rattigan has come out of the drawing room and into the boarding school for this story of an unloved, unloving teacher, known variously to his students as "the Crock" and "the Himmler of the lower fifth." It is not easy to see how Mr. Rattigan draws his screenplay, derived from a play of his which appeared a couple of years ago, along the narrow, twisting path between the abysses of melodrama and stagnation. But draw it he does, and the resulting picture is a most gratifying and beautifully executed study of character.

Perhaps the best way to describe the plot of "The Browning Version" is to imagine two books--one representing Andrew Crocker-Harris and the other his beautiful, frustrated wife--interleaved with one another. The story proceeds by turning the pages alternately in one book and the other, each new revelation of one character giving a new insight into the other. Of course, when we reach the end of both books, we discover that the books should never have been interleaved at all, and it is this mismatch that makes them both into tragedies.

Mr. Rattigan has woven the supporting parts masterfully into his exposition, and the players have given them faultless renditions. Nigel Patrick, who as Mrs. Crocker-Harris' lover does most of the page-turning, Wilfrid Hyde White as the suave old headmaster, and Brian Smith as a student who wants to pity and like "the Crock," are particularly good. But Michael Red-grave in the leading role is the star in every way. His portrayal of a man who has turned all his frustrations against himself to satisfy his wife's characterization of him and has sought refuge in the most utter degradation of his spirit is truly exciting, Jean Kent, as his wife, has a much less difficult part to play, and one in which she is quite adequate.

If there is anything to reproach about the picture, it is that the author appears to "stack the cards" in some of his situations to derive the greatest possible effect. But after all, who is to say that it might not have happened that way? Mr. Rattigan has exposed a man's soul with relentless probing, but at the same time with extreme delicacy, and that is about all one can ask of any playwright.