MR FRED. MARSHALL AS JEAMES.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3188, 16 September 1881, Page 3

MR FRED. MARSHALL AS JEAMES.

Mr Marshall opens at the Theatre Royal to-morrow night in a sharacter in which he appears to have made a reputation throughout the Australian colonies. The Australasian, referring to his performance in Jeames in May last, says:—Mr Fred. Marshall made his reappearance in Melbourne on Monday night at the Bijou in a comedy by Mr Bernand, entitled " Jeames," the incidents of which have been taken, as may be surmised, from Thackeray's Yellow Plush Tapers. We have a very Bimilar story in Warren's Ten Thousand a Year, only the ending in the case of the comedy is not, as in Warren's tale, tragic. It is the adventures of a footman, whom irreverent persons call a flunkey, who, becoming suddenly rich by the lucky investment of his own and his fellow servants' saving, assumes _ the position of a gentleman, and receives accordingly the worship which is invariably paid to wealth. Equally, as a matter of course, he forgets his old friends, discards the love of his fellow servant, whose money had helped him to his greatness, and mixes with titled people as if he were one of them. But a crash comes, and he loses his money as quickly as te had acquired it. He is kicked out of the elegant society into which he had intruded and in which he had been so ridiculous, and we find him in the last act working as a laborer in the country. The girl he had forsaken is, however, true to him, and the story ends with his contrition and her forgiveness. It will be seen, therefore, that the materials of this play are simple enough, but it is so admirably put together that there is not a dull moment in it. Of course, it must always be borne in mind that Mr Marshall plays the part of the Flunkey, and that whenever he is on the stage the humour never lulls an instant, so that the entertainment just now provided at the Bijou is of the very pleasantest kind. You are kept in a pretty flutter of amusement through all the four acts, and when the curtain falls you experience a kind of disappointment there is not more of it. Of Mr Marshall's performance of the part of Jeames, it would be quite impossible to say too much in praise. For it is more than merely funny ; it is true. You feel tbat the character he is representing would say and do exactly as Mr Marshall says and does under like circumstances. Some of the situations are exquisitely ludicrous, but they are never made so by any forced breadth of groteequeness. They are ail germane to the meaning, and, in fact, necessary to the elucidation of the purpose. Whatever Mr Marshall does in this, as, indeed, in all other characters, always seems to be the outcome of his relations to other persons and things. He seems as if he could not help being humorous, and yet there is such an ease in his manner of doing it that it has the effect of escaping from him rather than of being an effort of will. But then this is just the rare magic of his art, in which few are so accomplished as he if.