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The last two scenes in Victoria Regina are concerned with the familiar fat-faced old age of the Widow of Windsor. For this final period Miss Hayes has inflated her cheeks,* dropped her mouth and eyelids in a fashion as extraordinary as her withered disguise for the closing shots of The Sin of Madelon Claudet. Here her quality as one of the nation's really great emotional actresses gets full display. Play wright Laurence Housman has contrived his finale along Cavalcade lines. The time is the Diamond Jubilee of 1897. The place is Buckingham Palace. Victoria, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Queen, Defender of the Faith, Empress of India, has just been wheeled into one of the front chambers by her big-bellied son, Edward of Wales. Slight, bewhiskered Grandson and other of her numerous descend ants are gathered respectfully around the old lady when she suddenly begins to cackle about an extraordinary thing that happened during the procession as she passed the Marble Arch. A mob of work men broke through the soldiers and police, says Victoria, and began to shout: "Go it, old girl ! We knew you could do it ! " Victoria irritably smothers a sniffle, adds: "Very improper people!"
Playwright, Compared to his poetic brother Alfred Edward Housman (The Shropshire Lad), Laurence Housman is a literary lightweight. The author of such things as An Englishwoman's Love Letters, Angels and Ministers and Little Plays of St. Francis, Housman has written two previous dramatic works which were refused licenses by the censor who cannot permit representations of the Deity or the Royal Family on the British stage. That Victoria Regina was also refused permission to be performed in Great Britain was the result of an accident, for it was confected for the study rather than the stage.
Out of a dramatic biography in 32 scenes, Producer Gilbert Miller has hacked ten for theatrical purposes. What is left is pure, if unexciting, history, since Playwright Housman has entirely neglected to develop any dramatic significance from his theme. Yet the play has definite artistic merit and for this the audience must thank Actress Hayes. Queen or no queen, hers is a lively, three-dimensional portrait from girlhood to senescence of a spirited woman whose virtues & vices were proudly middle class.
Also to be thanked is Vincent Price, a good-looking beanpole two years out of Yale, who went to Europe to study art and wound up an actor. The image of Chelsea figurines of the Prince Consort, he gives a cunningly conceived and ably represented impersonation of the virtuous, conservative, kindly Albert. Corpulent Producer Miller is supposed to have spent $75,000 on mounting Victoria Regina. Indeed, the gilt alone on the elaborate period furniture he brought from England for the show looks as if it had cost enough to keep several families through a hard winter. And in the elegant fashion to which he has accustomed himself, discriminating Mr. Miller confidently expects to be kept through this winter by the golden talents of the most valuable of all his properties, Helen Hayes.