Pomander Walk (play)

Supporting Featured Bit Players The overall setting is laid on Pomander Walk near Chiswick, a residential street of five tiny houses in Queen Anne style, on the bank of the river Thames.For a matinee charity benefit in April 1911, Parker wrote a brief rhyming prologue, delivered by the character of Marjolaine before the curtain rises, which became part of the play thereafter.Baron Otford comes by to ask Admiral Sir Peter to convince his son Jack to marry an heiress.Parker tried to dissuade him, saying Pomander Walk had no plot, no hero, no heroine, not even a change of scenery, but Tyler was adamant.[1] A less colorful account from The Observer reported that Parker had withdrawn Pomander Walk from the list of plays awaiting production at the Haymarket.[2] Curtis Brown went further, saying the play was returned by Herbert Trench of the Haymarket, as he had wanted some changes that Parker refused to make.Tyler had insisted Parker's daughter Dorothy[fn 4] could play the role of Marjolaine, over the playwright's objections.Louis Parker made up some doggeral lines to celebrate the six houses, which figured prominently in early publicity.The same fate befell a sedan-chair in Act I for Baron Otford; there wasn't enough room for it to make an entrance on the set.[7] Local reviewers were impressed with the finely drawn characters and the actors playing them, while recognizing the story was trifling.Dorothy Parker was especially favored: "She is the quintessesnce of girlish charm, and plays the ingenue role with a grace, a witchery, and a winsomeness that captured the whole audience last night.[1] In his 1934 memoir, Tyler says the Act II ending was flat until Parker hit upon the notion of having the all the doors close in Caroline Thring's face one after another.As late as 18 December 1910 newspapers reported Geoffrey Douglas in the cast,[10] but thereafter the role of Basil Pringle was recorded as belonging to Reginald Dance.[11] The Standard Union critic said "The comedy is sweet and entertaining, without what is generally known as a star, and decided absence of anything approaching a climax.