THE COWAN DRAMATIC COMPANY

Evening Post, Volume LVI, Issue 18, 21 July 1898, Page 2

THE COWAN DRAMATIC COMPANY

" FOR THE TERM OF HIS NATURAL LIFE." The best iiou.se of the season greeted the rise of the Opera llou«e curtain last night on tho Cow an C'o.'s version of Marcus Clarke's Lumous convict s.tory. It l* but a few years since the play was previously given in Wellington, so that, there is no need to repeat the plot, which is told in a prologue and four acts, and interpreted by the full strength of the company. Some effective sets were shown, that in which the prologue is enacted being especially so. The sensational denouement to the first act, on board the ship Malabar, where the mutiny culminates in an exploMou and a realistic presentment of the burning ship, was heartily cheered. The set showing the island home in the second act was also a fine cloth. The exeiling flogging incident which terminated the third act, when the Rev. Mr. North (Mr. Ned Holloway) proved himself a muscular Christian, " brought down the house," and earned a recall fop the principals. Mr. W-. Dalgleish was heavily weighted with the trying part of Rufus Dawes, and tho Capt. Frere of Mr. H. J. G rattan was as unnatural as he made the iterm of the hero's imprisonment. Bright streaks of relief to the strong dramatic situations were flashed across the production by iMiss Maude Gwynne as Sylvia. Mr. W. H. Cowan made the most of, a caricature of the gaol chaplain, the Rev. Mr. Meekin, and the same may be said of Mr. S. Davenport's Gabbett and Miss Ada Rochefort's Crow. Miss Jennie Nye played w-ell as Sarah Rex, wife of the conspirator, John Rex (Mr. J. Whidburn), and the other members filled in the subsidiary characters evenly. "The Term of His Natural Life" will be repeated to-night.