AMUSEMENTS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2634, 16 October 1909, Page 3 (Supplement)

AMUSEMENTS.

HIS MAJESTY’S

LOCAL FIXTURES

Pathe Pictures.—Nightly. Oct 27 to 30.—Hugh Ward's Comedy

Company

Nov. 15. 10, I..—Pollard's Juvenile Opera Company.

Proprietors of theatres in New Zealand have received a communication from Messrs Clarke, Meynell, and Gunn, in which it is stated that- the firm intends to send round companies to fill the dates which nave been booked at the New Zealand theatres. This seems as if it- is not the intention of Messrs Clarke. Meynell. and Gunn, to abandon the Dominion altogether, as was announced some time ago.

Certainly one the strongest casts over teen in comedy in New Zealand is that of Hugh J. \\ aid’s company, which opens at His Majesty’s Theatre, Gisborne, on IS how Nigtit, in “A Bachelor's Honeymoon.” There are four distinct "stars” in Mr. Hugh Ward, Miss Grace Palotta, Miss Rose Musgrove, and Miss Celia Ghiioiii, and the supporting members iuciude Mr. Reginald Wykoham. Mr. W. B. Beattie, Mr. Arthur Eldred, Aliss Ruby Baxter, Miss Florence Redfcrn, Mr. Robert Greig, and Mr. H. H. Wallace. The last-named was a leading comedian under J. C. ’Williamson’s management, and the fact that 1m plays the smallest part iu "A Bachelor’s Honeymoon” is no reflection on liis ability, hut a good instance of Mr. Hugh Ward’s “allstar” policy.

Mr. Marshall P. Wilder, a racy Yankee raconteur, is amusing London at present. One of his best stories is about the mail at the dee-po who held up dozens of intending passengers while he explained to the booking clerk he wanted to go to Chicago, incidentally gave his reasons, then asked the fare. The clerk replied: “Twenty-eight dollars.” Coolv the man turned out liis pockets, slowly counted liis cash, and showed that he only had four dollars and a half. Again and again he asked the clerk if there was no way in which ho could manage it, and repeatedly Im was told it was impossible to accept 4$ dollars for a2B dollars fare. At length the would-be passengeb said: v’al, where can I go for 4} dollars?” “And,” added Mr. Wilder gravely. “.ovp'-v waiting man iu that lino told him.”

For several years there has been an outcry against musical comedy, because it lacks plot. Bright and attractive as it is, musical comedy has never satisfied those who long for a concise story and a logical, well-told sequence of events. “When are we to have musical comedv with a coherent plot?” is a question asked by many writers. Mr. Hugh Ward, it is claimed, brings an answer with a comparatively new form of entertainment, 'knows ns “musical farce.” There always has been welcome for good farce. Musical farce, such as “A Bachcdor’s Honeymoon,” possesses all the coherency of such farcical comedies as “Charley’s Aunt,” “Wliat Happened to Jones,”or “When Kniglits Were Bold.” It is the cake of farcical comedy, spiced with catchy songs and dances. The company play Gisborne for four nights, commencing Wednesday. 27th inst.

The Abbey Theatre, Dublin, was packed on the night of* August 23 for the performance of the Shaw play, “The Showing Up of Blanco Posnet,” barred in London bv the censor. The piece, an outline of which has appeared, is a compound of farce and cheap melodrama (says a “Daily Telegraph” correspondent). Blanco is sometimes distinctly amusing, as when ho explains that he left the place in the early morning because he did not want to see this rotten town by daylight. The jury are amusing in their anxiety to hang Blanco, not so much from, a sense of justice as from a keen anticipation of the entertainment which the hanging will afford. Even that old hypocrite, the elder Posnet, is amusing when he propounds the theory that Americans are great because they work hard when they,-work, and when not working get too clrunk to fall into temptation, and the seductions of the world pass them by. Apart from such broad humor, there is little that is remarkable or original. The motive —the conversion of a bad man—is a favorite with the short story writer of to-day, and here it is not treated very forcibly. The denouement —the failure of Phemy to say the fatal -words, which will send Blanco to the gallows—is robbed of intensity by the fact thati her evidence has been almost wholly discredited. If one remembers the play at all after having seen it. it will be for its stray humor, and not for any moral lesson it conveys.

Two very interesting dramas— 7< The Fires of Fate” and “Strife”—have just been secured for Australasia by Mr. J. C. Williamson. •’The Fires of Fate” is a drama by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who calls it himself, a modern morality play. It is hardly that, though the author develops in it an interesting problem—whether a man's own life is his to do what he likes with, or whether ho owes something to humanity in general. The theme is that of Colonel Egerton, who is told that an insidious disease gives him only twelve months’ more of life. He contemplates suicide, but is dissuaded, and goes on a trip to Egypt instead. As a member of a party of tourists, he falls in love with a young American girl; but, with the sword of Damocles hanging over his head, he cannot 6peak. The party are captured by Dervishes, brutally ill-used, and carried awav in the desert. But the mauling the Colonel receives achieves the unexpected. The shattered nerve centres are restored to strength, and the storv ends, happily. The action of the drama is spirted and exciting, particularly the Egyptian scenes. “Strife,” the other drama, is by John Galsworthy, one of England’s leading dramatists, but little behind Shaw in fame. It i§. certainly the strongest of his three plays, and handles impressively and convincingly the story of a struggle between employers and employees. Mr. Charles Frohman, who saw it in the Court Theatre, where the famous Vedrenn© Barker management produced it. thought so much of it that he organised an all-star company to play it at the Duke of York’s Theatre, and the result justified his confidence.