MISS RUTH DRAPER

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 242, 9 July 1938, Page 17

MISS RUTH DRAPER

Famous Character Artist Miss Ruth Draper, the famous character sketch artist, will be presented for a season of five nights at the New Opera House, Wellington, by J. C. Williamson Theatres, beginning on Saturday, July--30. Miss Draper will also present matinee performances on Saturday and Wednesday, July 30 and August 3. With

only a couple of chairs, a couple of desks, a couple of shawls, a parasol, a mackintosh, a fea ther boa and a Baedeker, Miss Draper on her opening performance will play a whole gallery of women She presents an old duchess opening a bazaar; an Irish peasant woman telling of her son’s

death at Gallipoli, and a small army of women, English, German, American, Italian, in a Naples cathedral. Perhaps, one of her outstanding performances is “Three Women and Mr. Clifford,” in which Miss Draper never fails to hold her audicnee spellbound for nearly an hour. In this miniature three-act drama she portrays first of all the efficient secretary, then the bored, indifferent wife, then the understanding “other woman,” and one gets to know, not only three women, but Mr. Clifford as well as his children, his aunt, his business acquaintances, and the other members of his staff. Writing of this sketch, A. P. Herbert says: “Confound this woman. That three-piece sketch about Mr. Clifford lias as much meat in it as a Shakespearean tragedy. Mr. Eugene O’Neill might have made a seven-hour drama out of it. Men have concocted protracted trilogies out of much less solid material.” Miss Draper writes all her own sketches, and she has created 57 characters. This is not counting the unseen ones. If you count them there must be a cast of more than 200.