ABSTRACT
Living and lovable to me was Mr. Harold Scott's Vanya, with his harassed intense little eyes, his undignified despair, and alternately mournful and excitable gestures. But vivid also to me, alas, are the points at which some of the other characters failed to actualise themselves before me. I did not recognise Dr. Astrov in Mr. Frith Banbury, nor Yelena in the stiffly severe, not to say formidable. Miss Swinstead. Mr. Banbury's make-up and demeanour were hard to reconcile with the impression he has to make on the women in the play, to whom he seems an interesting and superior man. Astrov has for them that charm which a handsome dilapidated idealist often exercises. . . .
