COMEDY AND DRAMA.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 143, 18 June 1936, Page 11

COMEDY AND DRAMA.

HIS MAJESTY'S THEATRE. To-night and to-morrow night at His Majesty's Theatre the J. C. Williamson Comedy-Dramatic Company, headed by Ethel Morrison and Elaine Haniill, will present two final performances of Ivor Novello's clever and very entertaining comedy, "Fresh Fields," which has been attracting large audiences since its opening presentation. On Saturday afternoon and evening and the following three nights they will present the initial Auckland production of Keith Winter's engrossing domestic drama, "The Shining Hour," which created something of a sensation in Wellington, where it attracted record audiences. "The Shining Hour" is comedy-drama, emotional to a strong degree in its impact; a play wherein the situation is stated without any deception in the first act, and which sustains interest in its development to the very end. "•[n working out his plot," wrote a critic recently, "the author of 'The Shining Hour' has displayed amazing ability for laying a finger on the subtlest human impulses. When he invented his character 'Mariella' he thought of her, no doubt, as the symbol of the Lorelei. Not by exotic glamour or physical lures, but bv a disturbing challenging power of the spirit, this woman innocently brings doom into' the placid farmhouse."