"STINGAREE."

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 70, 21 March 1908, Page 9

"STINGAREE."

If the verdict of a first-night audience , was always to be relied upon one would I have considerable hesitation in predict-! ing success for Mr. E. W. Horaung's , new four-act play "Stingaree," produced | j at the Queen's "Theatre last Saturday evening. "Stingaree" is a dramatised version of the author's bushranging ! stories which recently appeared in a | popular magazine, and is frankly '"very mellow melodrama." Its hero is a bushranging melomaniac, who is always riskj ing life and liberty in order to gratify J his passion for music. His enthusiasm ! is certainly warmer than hi 3 taste is I fastidious, but he is an altogether imi possible person, and must not be judged by the ordinary standard. He is an extremely picturesque stage iigure, this young aristocrat Greville Dare, who. finding going to the devil more agreeable i than keeping conventionally straight, adopts the profession of a bold, bad (not too bad) bushranger. He sports a monocle, wears immaculate linen, and grooms his hair like a Piccadilly exquisite. He has been the hero of a hundred thrilling exploits, but has never taken human life. Only one man has ever seen his face, Tom Bracy, a squatter, and as Stingaree saved his life on that occasion, Bracy in gratitude refuses to I describe the bushranger's appearance, j When Stingaree learns that there is to be a concert at Eureka station, which he is proposing to "stick up" with his mates, Sam and Howie, he does a little scouting on the day before the concert, and arrives outside the house just as j Hilda Bouverie, Mrs. Clarkson's compan- j ion, is singing "The Outlaw." Stingaree i listens spell-bound, and when the song I is over introduces himself by his real 1 name, and determines that he will get J 1 the composer of the song. Sir Julian I ! Crum, to take the singer up and train ! her. Stingaree makes such an impression on Hilda that when TJracy, who is I a candidate for her hand, suddenly api pears and suspects the bushranger as a rival, the situation becomes strained, and Bracy threatens to give Stingaree up to the police if he catches him there again. Then comes the big scene of the play. Stingaree -turns up again, for he and his two pals "bail up" the concertroom, and amid tremendous excitement our hero insists on Hilda singing "The

Outlaw" for the edification of Sir Julian, although her jealous mistress had care* fully excluded her name from the pro* gramme. Sir Jrdian is so delighted with Hilda's singing that he offers to take her to England and make her a scholar, in his academy of music, an offer she promptly accept;. Suddenly the lights are lowered, the bushrangers escape in the confusion, and almost immediately; Stingaree reappears as Greville Dare. He tells a cock-and-bull story of having been tied up to a fence by Stingaree, and when he returns the money and jewellery which his '"pals" had politely acquired from the cowed audience, nobody has the lenst suspicion, and Dare is quite a hero. He coolly accepts Squatter Clarksorfs invitation to stay with! him as his guesi. and improves the shining hour with li:lda. Once more Bracy turns up. He 'ells Hilda that Dare is Stingaree. and threatens to fetch the police unless Hilda consents to marry him. To save Dare she consents, but, discovering the truth, Stingaree saves the girl he love.-- from a loveless marriage; by surrendering himself to the police. The last act trails off feebly. Years elapse, during which Stingaree languishes in prison, earning, however, excellent conduct marks, helping to quell & mutiny, and so captivating popular sympathies that the Governor of New South. Wales i≤ being petitioned on all hands for the reformed bushranger's release. The Governor, however, has for the moment something more agTeeable to attend to —namely, presiding at a concert to welcome the now illustrious prima.donna Hilda Bouverie. on tour in Australia. Stingaree in his prison cell has heard of the concert, and, effecting his escape from prison, makes his way to the concert-hall. Here he meets nofi only his old love, but his Excellency, the Governor, who, having at that moment in his pocket a free pardon foe Stingaree, naturally finds some embarrassment in presenting it in due form to a prisoner who hks anticipated it by effecting his own liberation. His Excellency shows himself, however, quite a man of the world, and possessed, of that perfect tact in awkward situations which is indispensable in the Governors of autonomous colonies. "My carriage can wait," he says with a courtly airy as he withdraws to an antechamber, leaving the prima donna and the converted bushranger to fall into each other's arms. If the rest of the play reached the level of the second act, there would be a fortune in it. It is a great sight to see the three bushrangers holding up the shed full of people, and the curtain fell to uproarious applause. But the re-maindr-r of the play is tepidly convene tional, and the applause that marked the final fall of the curtain was freely intermixed with unmistakable tokens of disapproval. As "Stingaree," Mr. Henry Ainley gave a delightfully easy and virile piece of acting, and his "mates" Sam (0. P. Heggie) and Howie (Kenyon Musgrove)- sup» ported him excellently in tSe big scene, after which they disappeared completely. The other parts were well filled, but in a cast ot four-and-twenty there is scarcely another part worth mention.