stage/screen

Oh, Brother! 'Sister George' Chickens Out

By PETER BELLAMY

"The Killing of Sister George," which wasC Georg named the best play of the season when it opened in London, just did not come over with equal effectiveness when it opened a week's engagement at the Hanna Theater last night.

The pace is painfully slower, which may indicate the direction is slipping. What were laugh lines when this reporter saw the play in London are not laugh lines here. Beryl Reid created the role of Sister eGorge in London and later won a Tony Award Nomination for it on Broadway. Alas, the character has been changed by performance. As played by Miss Reid, Sister George was a lesbian of constant, pronounced, male characteristics. Claire Trevor, the star of the road. company, is an actress of highest proven merit, but her slip shows in her interpretation of an ultra-mannish lesbian. This real-life mother of three children is just too feminine.

Miss Trevor is a soul in torment as Sister George,

but she does not reflect the outward virility of a swaggering sergeant major, which added so much flavor

to the London and New York productions.

EVEN as Sister George's masculine behavior and attitudes are dulled, so is the positiveness of her wit. She is no longer the shadow, imitation man she was in London. Frank Marcus' biting perception of character has been blurred.

He has handled the touchy subject of lesbianism with considerable delicacy. There are several scenes of sad istic lesbianism, but no love scenes, thank the Lord.

London apartment of the The play takes place in a present. To the English public, to whom the word "sister" connotes a nurse, Sister George is the noble national heroine of a TV serial.

IN PRIVATE, this middleaged lesbian drinks, smokes

cigars, utters bronx cheers

and swears like a dock walloper. Her younger female roommate, called "Childe," for cruel reasons, has become a passive lesbian as the line of least resistance.

"The Killing of Sister George" refers not to accidental death or murder, but

to the threatened elimination of Sister George from the airways. It seems that while drunk, she has made a disgraceful, unforgivable attack on two novitiates of of a holy order.

Her TV fate hangs much on the attitude of a BBC official. The latter, though formerly married, is also a lesbian, with her eye on George's pretty roommate. The end finds Sister George disgraced, alone, and in the agony of despair. This mood is eloquently projected by Miss Trevor.

The character of Childe as played by Patricia Sinnote, is more stupid and less nuerotic than it was in London. Natalie Schafer is not as smugly merciless as her London counterpart. Polly Rowles is quite amusing in her bit part as the clairvoyant.