BLAND HOLT.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIV, Issue 278, 23 November 1893, Page 2

BLAND HOLT.

"A MILLION OF MONEY."

A million of money and how to spend it. | Here is tho problem of which Mr BlandHoit and his company furnished a solution in the Opera House last night. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, it is not a problom that many or any of us will have to doal with practically. That far morg difficult problom —" A million of money and how to get ib," of which the first ia really bub a corollary, bas to be worked put to b*» gin with, and to every mother's son of us it. is likely to prove as much of a poser as tl.& squaring of the circle or the doubling tf the cube waa to the ancients. Our aiatbftmatical studies in this line are cob* lined to much smaller sums, not $ few finding " one hundred tv year and how to make it" task enough for their abilities. Now, if Mr Holt instead of showing us how to spend money—a business in which we are quite an fait— had'shown us how to make it, he would have been infinitely more instructive. Men would gladly have paid their few shillings on tbe chance of picking up a " tip " for the acquirement of thousands. Bub would the play have been so interesting? We all know something of the road to ricbes, though we may never have journeyed it, and we know tbab ibis not a broad highway up which one can drive in a carriage and four. Like the path of righteousness ib is narrow and difficult, and few there be that find ib, and unlike thab path it is often somewhat "crooked." There would have been little scope for sensational situations or brilliant' scenic efi'ecbs in depicbmg the upward crawl to millionairedom, compared with the opportunities which oho broad downward road from that blissful eminence presents. The one leads through dusty ledgers, railroad stock, mining shares, and one droops and get. weary panting up the iron pathway which is bare and unbeauti* ful. The other is us delightful as an avenue in the Champs Elyße6s. It is a veritable primrose way. Mr Holt came to amuse, nob to instruct us, so ho gave us a glimpse of this easy, pleasant, downward path. May, so realistic has he made "A Million of Money," that for close on three good hours wo are acbually travelling it, in spirit, ourselves, wibh Harry Dunstable and his gradually melting million. A million of money ! How does Harry gtib ib? someone asks". Oh, you unsophisticated mortal ! Do you not; know that in happy etageland thero are such things as uncles . Thoso good old uncles, with their money bags—whereever they got them, heaven knows—why are they so seldom to be found off the boards and why do they never die except there? The inveterate theatregoers thab they are. Harry Dunstable gets his million in the first act. In the firsb acb also we are introduced to Major Belgrave and Dick Bounder, who are the villains, and are to help Harry tc melt down the money. W'e also make the acquaintance of Harry's wife, hor lather, a typical old English rector, Tom Cricklewood, a divinity student with pronounced sportine proclivities, and *Hetty Nestledown the rector's niece. Afber we have made bhe ocquaintahceof these and several other people, Harry gets his million and then the fun begins. There are several ways of .pending a million. Indeed, the ways of spending a million are innumerable, from dissolving pearls in your liquor, like Anthony and Cleopatra, to buying up all the* mining stock in New Zealand. Harry pursues the most approved methods. He starts with horses, and bogus mining companies, and a little hospital and lunatic asylum endowment business. A rather incongruous mixture, but the hospitals and lunatic asylums are necessary as showing that Harry is really a good young man. Through the machinations of Major Belgrave and Dick Bounder, whofind Harry less tractable than they had imagined, an adventure^ Mrs St. Clair, ia broughb "into the swim," and captivates. Harry, though she .lever really succeeds in. divorcing his affections from his wife, Mary. However, she manages with bhe help of her friend, the Major, be awake the tongue of scandal, and when all is ripe, her real husband, whom she has ruined, and who is also "in the swim," comes on the scene and threatens proceedings against. Harry unless the latter pays a good round sum. He does that.one moment, but the next he turns round, and denouncos the Major as the man who bad been head of the conspiracy to ruin Harry by means of Stella. Things look black enough for the' hero, when St. Clair, in tho mideb of hia outpourings of wrath against the womatwho has ruined him, talis to the around and dies. The Major's game ia up, and he and Harry' aro strangers henceforth. Stella, however, exercises such a strange fascination over the millionaire thab he cannot tear himself away from her. His wife, broken hearted, wili have nothing bo say to him, goes back to her father, and Harry in despair plunges recklessly downwards. Cards are added to tho instruments of his. ruin, and in the company of fast men and women, he looses his thousands nightly ab the baccarat table. Cheated, fleeced right and lefb by clever swindlers and parasibes, male and female, Harry g_bs to the lower end of the million ab lasb. Then he departs with his regiment for " foreign parts "a brokenhearted man leaving behind him a broken* hearted wte. On tbe ship is Stella St. Clair, who has thrown over Harry in bis ruin and married a sprig of the nobility with thirty thousand a year. The vessel iH wrecked and only three of her passengers escape to the safety of a desolate reef. These three are Harry, Stella and her husband. The husband goes mad and the wife dies. Hairy is ' rescued, returns to his wife, is reconciled, recovers a good slice, of the million, and all ends well, as ib always ought in happy sbageland. That's the story of "A Million of Money" in outline. With all due respect to the writers, Henry Pettitt and the great Sir Augustus Druriolanus hira.elf, lb id not to be compared in point of literary merit to " A Trumpet Call." Ib has, however, features ooculiarly its own. Its merits are spectacular, and as a spectacular drama i. is wonderful, and will always draw in Auckland. There was barely ar. empty place in tho house lasb nighb, and there will nob bs so long as this play runs. The introduction of racers, and representation of a raco on the stago, the life-like re-pro-, auction of the great English carnival, the Derby, with thab kulei.-*o.«*copic picture of life in which card sharpers, thimble-riggers, jockeys, clowns, gipsies, policeman," thieves, carriages, picnic parties are all mingled togobher on the crowded stage, must prove irresistible to the horpeloving Australasian. Then bhe scenes of bhe storm ab eea and the wreck, the illuminated fete, and the Wellington barracks are all realistic. Of the actors we have hardly left ourselves room to speak. Leo it suffice to-day to mention Mr Bland Hoij as Tom Cricklewood, a moat amusing ana* original imoersonation ; Mr Baker, as Major Belgrave, a first-class villain ; Mr Walter Howe as Harry, and Miss fc-iiw Bland aa bis wife-each good in their parts, and Mr Inman moat successful in his new role. Also let us not forpeb^iM Harrie Ireland as Stella. She is thoroughly natural, and as pretty as she is "»f r1"" cipled and heartless. Mrs Bland Holt is, of course, a success, as usual, while w| Brown takes the part of Dick Bounder, ana Mr Corleese that of the parson, to the hie.