THE BROUGH COMEDY COMPANY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVIII, Issue 211, 11 September 1897, Page 2

THE BROUGH COMEDY COMPANY.

The farewell season of the Brough Comedy Company commences at the Opera House on Monday next, when Oscar Wilde's clever play " A Woman of No Importance" will be staged for the iirst time in Auckland. A significance beyond the usual attaches itself to the present visit of this wellknown Company. After 12 memorable years of management in Australasia, Mr Brough has decided to revisit the Old Country, and accordingly the present season is one of a series of "farewells " paid to the various centres in the colonies. At the conclusion of the Auckland season the company disband, so that local theatregoers will be the very last to witness the trill mphs of the strongest theatrical combinations south of the line. Auckland no doubt realises what it is about to lose, and a royal reception is sure to be accorded to Mr and Mrs Brough on their re-ap-pearance next week. The opening production is said to be a remarkable play, brilliantly epigrammatic in dialogue, and full of pungent, but not ill-natured, satire on society and life in general. It is not what now-a-days is called a problem play, but is a play with a purpose. That purpose is so plain that one grasps the idea of the author immediately, viz., to put before his audience in the strongest possible light tho cruel injustice clone to women under our present state of moral ethics. The keynote to the play is supplied in the Avords used by one of the characters, " The woman suffers, the man goes free." This is most powerfully brought out, and without in any way beingrepulsive. It is a remarkable tribute to the genius of the author (says the Christchurch " Press "), that though the play throughout depends entirely and solely for its strength on the dialogue and most natural but highly effective situations, the interest of the audience is rivetted from the rise to the fall of the curtain.

The Company will arrive from the South by the Takapuna to-night. The booking at the box office is exceptionally heavy.