ELOCUTIONARY RECITAL.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 341, 30 October 1908, Page 8

ELOCUTIONARY RECITAL.

The funds of tho Boys' Institute should benefit materially by tho elocutionary recital given under the direction of Mr. J. 51. Clark, at the Concert Chamber of the.Town Hall.' Reciters, good, bad, and indifferent, are fairly numerous m our midst, but elocutionists, worthy of' being called such, are as rare as good tenors, ana 6hould be, though they probably are not, valued as much. Mr. Clark is a gladdening example of the rare'species. His early training he received among a lot of clever amateurs among whom figured Mr. W. D. Lvon, Mr! Morris Fox, Mr. H. E. Nich'olls, and Mr. J. Hern, with occasional incursions into the sacred glow of the professional footlights in such distinguished company, as that of ' the late ck -"fskins and J. B. Howe, skilled' players oi the days when elocution was an'essential to success on 1 the 1 dramatic stage. , The observant •will have noted that is not so' now—ever so much not so. Mr. Clark must have imbibed a gqod deal of the Promethean fire of the stars of thirty years ago—lie has the same deliberate methods, the same convincing impressiveness, which gains so much from his rich, round manly voice. He makes effective intervals (perhaps too much so on occasions), and has a pei feet command of broad strong gestures. Above, and perhaps before, all he has that repose on . the platform that all must admire, anu all students of elocution should' strive to acquire. Last evening Mr. Clark recited wellaged verses and older prose, but it was all so good and so admirably done that one was glad in a sense of the absence of "uprto-dateness" in the. programme. Ho gave that vivid word picture, How Rubinstein Played" (Adams), with fine emphasis, and got a good deal of feeling in_"The Vagabonds" (Troiibridge), but 1; w ? s , ln , Mark Antony's oration over the body of Ceasar (Shakespeare) that he brought the full power of his elocutionary force into play introducing with te'ilinc effect, amidst .bursts o5 feeling for the dead emperor, that growing irony towards Brutus so perfectly ordered in the lines. The reciter rose to considerable dramatic heights in that selection, from Thackeray's "Vanity Fair," in which Mrs. Ramdon Crawley (Becky Sham) is found out in her true 'colours, which are mostly vermilion in tint, and in evidence of versatility gave the laughter-proVoking pieces "The Bold Bald Man." The lady reciters were Mrs. Margaret Sutcliffe, whose broad style is admirably suited to such pieces, as "The Dandy Fifth," but which is rather lacking in sublety, as, for instance, in Bret Harte's wellknown poem, "Her Letter," where she lost a good deal of the naivete of the piece. She should not-pretend to write with one hand and make gestures with the other. The necessary chic for "Nini, Ninette, Ninon,' was missing, but the odc'ityof- the lines gained her an encore, in response to which she recited "All. on a Summer's Day" cleverly. Miss Christine Picot is an able'reciter, with a good idea of character work, as was evidenced in the American piece, "Preparations i for the Dinner Party" (Wiggins). Two dainty I poems recited effectively by this young lady' were "Tho Chaperon" and "A Lullaby," but she becamo a little too sentimentally prosy in "Heliotrope." Mr. F. Redgrave also recited. Mr. E. J. Hill supplied-vocal relief in "Mara" (a tuneful composition by Mr. Alfred Hill), "Best of All" (Jtoir), and, as an encore, tho pretty "Waiata Poi." The concert was presided over by Mr. Justice Cooper, who referred in a prologue to the entertainment, the good work that was being done by-the institute, and at its conclusion moved a hearty vote of thanks to Mr. Clark and tho other lady and gentlemen performers.