Dukes, Ashley

Dukes, Ashley (1885–1959), English dramatist, theatre manager, and dramatic critic. He worked for Vanity Fair, the Star, and the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, and was also for many years English editor of the American Theatre Arts Monthly. He had a wide knowledge of modern Continental drama and adapted a number of foreign plays for the London stage, among them Neumann's Der Patriot as Such Men Are Dangerous (1928) and Feuchtwanger's Jew Süss (1929), both for Matheson Lang. His very free version of an episode from Fernando de Rojas's La Celestina as The Matchmaker's Arms (1930) provided an excellent part for Sybil Thorndike, and Vivien Leigh made her first outstanding appearance in his The Mask of Virtue (1935), based on Sternheim's Die Marquise von Arcis. In 1933 he opened the Mercury Theatre where he did excellent work with productions of new and foreign plays, particularly verse plays. His translation of Machiavelli's Mandragola was seen there in 1939. Among his own plays the most successful was The Man with a Load of Mischief (1924), in which Fay Compton made a great success as the Lady.