RUTH DRAPER

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22467, 30 July 1938, Page 3

RUTH DRAPER

“AN ILLUMINATING MIRACLE” “The variety of this wonderful woman, who writes her parts as well as she acts them, cannot help making you a little less proud of our famous character actors who always act the same part and have to have that one written for them. Still, we can’t expect - more than one Ruth Draper in the world at one time,” So wrote a London critic in praise of Miss Ruth Draper, the world-famous artist who will present her amazing character sketches during a short tour of New Zealand during which four evening and two matinee performances will be given at the Theatre Royal, Christchurch, commencing on Saturday, August 6, the box plans for which are at the D.I.C. She comes to us at the peak of her career, fresh from a triumphant record-breaking season in Australia, during which the theatres were packed night after night and hundreds had to be turned away at each performance. In Europe and the United States her name is almost a legend. She is now so well known and well loved in London that she has only to engage a theatre, make a few small announcements that a Ruth Draper season is about to open, and the theatre is crowded every night. To say that Miss Draper is the most remarkable personality on the stage of the world to-day is a big statement to make, but it is borne out by facts. He r art does not lie in the normal threeact play. She makes no attempt to displace the reigning queens of Shakespeare or realistic drama or drawingroom comedy. She has carved her own niche in the scheme of the world’s entertainment, and it is a niche that is the continual wonder (and one might also say “envy”) of other arists in the dramatic field. Her sketches are specially written by herself for herself. Alone for two and a half hours she holds the stage, delineating no fewer than 60 entirely different characters, not merely portraying .them, but making them live with such a wealth of detail and subtle observation that, without the least hint of exaggeration, they become flesh and blood, so that people do not look at her but at the characters she has created. She makes her audience laugh over her observation of the foibles of human nature in such a sketch as that depicting an English lady showing friends round the garden. Then she gives a tragic cameo and one is near tears. Miss Draper is American by birth, but she speaks a pure English, and is equally at home in French and Spanish. Recently she had the honour to be commanded to perform at Windsor Castle. The ordinary box plans for the season open at the D.I.C. on Monday next at 9 a.m.