12 Wed., June 27, 1962 THE PLAIN DEALER HARSH TRUTH TOLD——

'A Taste of Honey' Has No Sweetness

By W. WARD MARSH Shelagh Delaney at 19.first wrote "A Taste of Honey"

for the London

"A Taste of Honey" Heights Art

(Opening Tomorrow)

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"A TASTE OF HONEY," produced and directed by Tony Richardson. by Screenplay Shelagh Delaney and

Richardson. Adapted from the play by Miss Delaney. A Woodfail Film from England released by Continental Distributing and played by the following

stage. It was a success. Now it becomes a movie and director Tony Helen Richardson and

the author have

seen to it that it

cast:

Jo

Geoffrey

Peter

Bert

Doris

Rita Tushingham

...Dora Bryan .Robert Stephens .Murray Melvin. David Bollvar ................ Moira Kaye

becomes a suc-But the author and director cessful movie. have succeeded in converting W. WARD MARSH It is not a the play into a fine art pichappy one. The play was not ture. a happy play; it presented a bitter slice of lower-class life.

The

characters are real

and convincing, and there is a racial issue which is han-living in the next alley. dled deftly and delicately. Dora takes up with a goodtime Charlie, deserting her A MOTHER AND HER daughter when she needs a daughter have nothing in mother most. common. Dora Bryan as the The result is that the girl mother is having her last takes up with a colored sailor fling at life, and she has about who in the end proves to be as much sympathy for Rita the most sensible and sympaTushingham's genuine juve-thetic character in the play. nile problems as any old hag But he goes to sea, and the

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girl, needing companionship in her darker hours, becomes involved with a homosexual. When her mother is ditched by the good-time Charlie, the two women meet on common ground for the first time.

THE PLAY IS DARK and unhappy, but it is truthful and honest. Rita Tushingham is at once sympathetic and rebellious, and her moment of error with the colored boy is one into which she has been driven.

Dora Bryan gives an excellent performance as a woman who thinks of herself first and her daughter afterwards. The clashes between the two are as natural as they are real and unpleasant.

"A Taste of Honey" has no sweetness, but it has excellent writing and acting, and it tells an unpleasant story with truth and honesty.