The Mostyn-Dalzeil Company.

Evening Post, Volume XLIX, Issue 107, 7 May 1895, Page 2

The Mostyn-Dalzeil Company.

" Humanity," the drama by Sntton Vane in which the Mostyn - Dalzeil Company opened its Wellington season at the Opera House last evening, is melodrama of the most lurid dye —a type dearly loved of a large section of the community, bnt which, were it taken as a reflex of real life, would justify the cynic's opinion that most men are fools and tho rest knaves. In it a muchpersecuted hero, of noble bearing tempered by a too early lack of Prohibition prinoiples, has fastened upon him, by the transparent device of placing keys in his handkerohief, and a pocket-book in his portmanteau, a theft which bis doddering idiot of a father promptly believes in, and which he himself aooepts with the resignation of an Oriental fatalist. And this despite the foot that the ragged wretch who took from him the handkerchief in which she was to conoeal the keys called his special attention to the peculiar manner in which she had folded it on it to his •pooket. let when tho keys dropped from that handkerchief ten minutes later he had entirely forgotten the oironmstanoe. The evil genius of the pieoe is one Clewes, a millionaire with a penchant tor murder, abduction, and other pastimes of the wioked rioh. He hires two ragged waif s—Rats and his spouse Sally—who sell their souls and Sally's alleged ingenuity for hiß yellow gold. In the first act, Sally and her gin-loving spouse are clad in tatters, over which they themselves groan, and which they are satisfied even the rag and bone man would not touch. Yet when they become the wellpaid instruments of the millionaire's lusts and his trusted body servants, dwelling in his mansion, they continue to wear thi identical rags which aroused their own disgust in the days of their misery. Finally the woman rounds upon her employer, virtue is. triumphant, vice, in the person of the plutocrat, break! its neck in a onoumber frame or a conservatory, leaving the consoling feeling that there will be at least work for the unemployed glaziers, and oven the most virtuous idiots— or the most idiotic virtuous —are accorded a happiners their imbeoility certainly has not deserved. There is praotioallj- only one person in the drama afflicted with rational common sense, and that is tbe good gen .us, a rag and bone waif named Trotty, and even Trotty has not cuteness enough to save him from buying over again the rags he has bought bnt a few minutes before. Altogether, "Humanity" is the Criminal Code in fivo acts. It is punctuated with murder, illumined with inoendiarism, ohastened with abduotioa, and glorified with subornation and perjury. And didn't the audinnoe clap the hero and groan the villain whenever it had on opportunity, and laugh heartily and long at Trotty's quaintnessea, Sally's ingenious villainy, and the shifts of her gin-loving spouse ? 'I here is abundance of sensation, and one particularly strong scene, in whioh the preoious pair thrust Trotty into his own cellar and then set fire to his house, the hero (Jack Sane) rescues him from amid the flame, whioh leapt up all over the stage. This particular pieoe of inoendiariim was "personally oondncted" by Captain Kernsley, of the Municipal Fire Brigade, but it was so realistio that it moved the andience to an enthusiasm which made them demand that Trotty be inoinerated all over again, and took the Opera House directors pell-mell down the dress cirole steps. Trotty is most cleverly and brightly pUyad by Misi Mostyn, a very winsome little actress. Mr. Dalzeil is a robustious hero, and Mr. Weir a repulsive millionaire. Mr. Dalzeil, Miss. Baynham (who made an attractive heroine), and Mr. Meymott (the realistic "Bats") sang with mnoh acceptance. Miss Clayton was a pitiful waif as Sally, and other ohirac. ters were acceptably filled by Messrs. Blake and Paly, Miv Dallas, and many pOier.. "Humanity" will be repeated to, night.' - ■ ,