"DR. BILL."

Auckland Star, Volume XXIII, Issue 118, 19 May 1892, Page 9

"DR. BILL."

The gentleman who called "Dr. Bill1' a farcical comedy was only wrong on ona point. 2*o is no comedy-i6 is plain farcethe broadest, most screaming farce that has been seen on an Auckland stage for a very considerable time. A preposterous play;i n point of probability, butirresistably funny. The sort of thing people feel idiots for laughing at, but which they go on laughing at from the rise to the fall of the cuttain Thero is little plot, no dialogue, Bo nothing "—except situation and clcvfr farcical acting, bub of that thero is a verf ablo feast. . Jj To sit down seriously to criticise m Bill" would be analogous to parsing onopf Gilbert's vorselebs to find out the_ joj The story has already been told in the Star, bub it can give no idea of tlio play. To say, for instance that at the end of the first act a sometime patient of tho retired doctor tempts h| into an odd fiorb of dance yclept tfo kangaroo dance conveys nothing to the keenest intelligence, nobbing thab would make a crammed "house" laugh till jb cried, and then laugh again. Ye'o that ij what did occur at the end of Act 1. J "Dr. Bill" last night. Driven by hij father-in-law's brick into receiving his ojj ballet-girl patients, the doctor is discovered by all tho members of tho company posturing and contortionising about th| stage in company with that remarkably acrile and, be ib eaid, graceful high-kickei,-Miss Ada Lee, alias Willie Fauntleroy, th» kangaroo girl. It sounds almost as inane aa ib is, but tho fun of it seem who can describe? It is excruciating; Ib is, indeed, a very long time since such a good opportunity to laugh has been givef to our townsmen as at this finale, and yet ib is only an instance. From start t| finish people go on laughing at the acting;; The dialogue, the gags, tho puns are trivial (especially the puns), villanous to tho lasc degree, but every five minute? something ridiculous is done, nob said* which keepa everyone laughing till the next thing happens. Of course 'tis all in tho acting. What "Dr. Bill" would be without smart farcical, i.e. overdone acting, would blanch the cheek of the hardiest to imagine. The company who play it are, as a whole, admirable Of course the acting is nothing like one ever sees in real; life, but, then, neither are tho people; bub both acting and people make you laugh till you acho again. Most people know what business means with rogard to acting; "Dr. Bill" is noihiwj bul business, but tho business is made excruciatingly funny. In less competent hands ib might be tediously dull, or distinctly vulgar. But tho person who could call "Dr. Bill," as acted by the Kcmblo Company, dull, would be worth preserving as a curiosity, and any who could see the slightest harm in it must be possessed of singularly and unenviably unpleasant minds. So much for the acting on tho whole. " Dr. Bill " was a surprising success because it was all round well done.

Next to particularise. Miss Kcmble is tho star, and acted her part with a vervo, a swing and an innate- senso of humour to be most highly commended. She was by far the most restrained of tho Company, but her acting never lacked point, and she was always ri^hfc in her appreciation of the value of each separate situation, nob making tho mistake of treating them all as equal. As the flirt, the society woman of Mio world, Mi.-> 3 Kcmble was excellent, but the part is of course scarcely one from which one can iudeo of the lady's real talents. In ".Dr. Bill" nil that can ba seen and said ia that she knows whore to stop in farce, and that is high praise indeed," for not one actor or actress in v hundred do.

Miss Ada Leo has littlo to say, but her doing is the making of the play. Undoubtedly fsho took honours after the star, equal honours, in fact. There is something very fetching about Mis 3 Lee's dancing. "The kangaroo" simply brought clown tho house. The high kicks would hoc oilend the most delicate sensibility, and must have been a severe blow to the gentlemen who absorbed the entire first row of the orchestral stalls. This ia to be warmly commended. To bo1 able to kick some five feet high in a manner which could not lcavo Mrs Urundy a nasty word to say is an accomplishment as rare as it is admirable. Mrs Firman and Mrs Brown were both well played, the former by Mrs Hill, who received a warm welcome, and tho latter by Miss Julia Lyons. Ac for the men, it is very hard to say who excelled— Mr Owen Harris as Dr. Bill ; H. W. Diver as George Webster, tho masher ; or Geo. Leopold as Mr Firman. Tho trio were excellent. AH overacted a little, oven for farce, when overacting to a degree is necessitous ; but not so much as to cause trouble. For a very clever though absurdly overdrawn study of the modern masher Mr Diver ia to be most warmly commended. It was a caricature of a caricature, but it was nevertheless excellent. Mr Harris was vory good as Dr. Bill, but we have seen more made of the character in some places. In others Mr Harris was unsurpassed. Mr Leopold's facial contortions were quite the best thing in a very funny impersonation. Ho is troubled with a temptation to try and be too funny sometimes, but fails only once or twice. It would be better and quite easy 1106 to fail at all, however. Mr Lester was scarcely so good as ho might have been as Mr Horton. Tho minor parts, chambermaids Jenny, Beggs, and tho rest, were capably filled. "Dr. Bill" will run a good many evenings. _ ~. ...