MARIE TEMPEST SEASON.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIX, Issue 46, 22 February 1918, Page 2

MARIE TEMPEST SEASON.

"PENELOPE." Those who saw Mice Marie Tempest at His Majesty's Theatre last night, in W. Somerset Maugham's delightful comedy, "Penelope," must have felt a certain regret that for some reason the management had decided to stage the piece for one night only. "Penelope" has been one of Miss Tempest's established successes in England and America, and few ot the audience could have failed to wish that their friends might have an opportunity of sharing the pleasure they found in it. Certainly the piqp.c compares .more than favourably with the others. _sjoie,cted for the present tour. ' The interest never flage for a moment, and Miss Tempest has every opportunity of showing her delightful variety of whimsical humours and her love of unexpected effects. As the wife of .a..London doctor who has become. :entangled ~in. an ; alTaii; a married' woman she is Httt the task of bringing the wanderer back, and in this ehe succeeds by the use of methods such as would occur to few Trives so placed. She gives her husband plenty of rope, and merely consoles lierself by buying something expensive in the way of dresses or hats every time he has an "important operation" on the came day as a race meeting. The reeult is that the other laiiy wearies the object of her attentions, and, attracted by his wife's aloofness, he comes back. As Penelope, Miss Tempest was full ne ever of lively humour and shrewdness: indeed, it was impossible to separate her from the character. Mr. Graham Browne did not have an entirely satisfactory part in the husband. He was required to appear completely foolish in the early scenes, and to enow a good deal of determination /nd humour as the pieco progressed. Thia he did very capably, minimising the incongruity as far as possible. Nearly all the minor parts gave good scope for character work. Perhaps the best effort was that of Mr. Sidney Stirling, as Penelope's father, a professor of mathematics, whose suggestions, based on the proposition that two and two make five, give his daughter her plan of campaign. Miss Ethel Morrison, ac his wife, gave a delightful study of a nice old lady with an interest in missions, and Mr. Leslie Victor evidently fuliilled the author's intentions as an elderly tuft-hunting man about town. ■Miss Gwen Burroughs pla3 T ed the other lady according to the best traditions of Biich parts, and Mrs. George Lauri and Mr. Victor Tatnall caused a great deal of amusement in minor comedy impersonations of the doctor's patients. "THE MARRIAGE OF KITTY." The fourth and the most famous of Miss Tempest's vast repertoire, "The Marriage of Kitty," will be staged for the first time in Auckland to-night, and ! will bo repeated again to-morrow (Satur- : day). The story in brief is as follows: — Kitty Silverton is a wily and womanly ' piquant country girl, who turns the ! tables on La Semiano, by falling in love j with her arrant husband, and appropriating him for herself at the close of various ] amusing and ridiculous situations. Miss i Marie Tempest approaches the character in a decidedly soubrettish spirit, a device by which Kitty's rustic origin is laugh- '. ably indicated. In her comic ohange of facial expression, so as t<J appear sufficiently unattractive to her jealous rival, thie remarkable actress is eaid to give such added point to the fun, that the.' house is invariably in screams of laughter. As an exposition of high-claes comedy, the delineation in surely without peer in the whole realm of dramatic art. Miss Marie Tempest will be seen as Kitty Silverton, a. character in which she has a magnificent opportunity to show her versatility in comedy. It pos- I sesses character, humour, observation, I genuine comedy, and literary workman- , ship.