"WATCH YOUR STEP!"

Evening Post, Volume XCIII, Issue 98, 25 April 1917, Page 2

"WATCH YOUR STEP!"

AREVtJE AND A CAUSE:

There does not seem to be any satisfactory or conclusive definition of what is come to be known as a revue in English. It certainly bears ho resemblance to this original form of entertainment which, according to the estimable Larousse, is ''line piece comique ou l'on passe dn reVue les eveuemenis de l'annee." Mr, Owen Cardston's enter- ' tiiinment given at the Opera House last ovening did not resemble that sort of i thing in any particular. True, there were just oiie or two ' allusions to ioiial personages, but no event of the moment or year was alluded to. Mr. Cardston I is not, of course, to blame for that. He | took the word as he found it in common use to-day, rather liked the look and the sound df It, and thereupon called his entertainment a revue, giving it an un-"; related and inconsequential title, and ! came down from Auckland to Wellington ' with it. Other people at Home' and in : Australia are calling these disjointed and , dften gorgeous productions reviles. Why not he? Then there was the cause, 2nd the. cause disarms criticism. The i entertainment, as the announcements stated, was given "under the auspices j df the Returned Soldiers' Association," ' a body that needs no commendation. Presumably the association is to benefit by the revue. In these circumstances, it would be gratuitously unkind to regard it as a professional production. Any shortcomings are lost sight of in the cause. The entertainment was ambi-. tiously conceived and designed to fill the house. It is understood it exceeded expectations in Auckland, where, ' ofcourse, the performers would be personally known to some one—a by no means negligible factor in estimating the drawing power of any entertainment. In Wellington, or elsewhere p.erhaps,^ that consideration would not carry so much weight. So, then, the show must stand upon its merits as a show, and really they were considerable, a spectacular point of view there was ample for the money, quite a lot of dancing by a quite considerable ballet, when the full Strength of the company was on the stage at one time. There were at times some very effective "pictures'," extremely well done. There was an exceedingly pretty set called the Domain Gardens, with living statuary, in which Miss Ida Histed sweetly sang "Rendezvous," whereupon two diminutive "statues" came to life, bowed, embraced, kissed-, and returned to their pedestals. The revue, too, brought into public notice a ginger of great promise, Miss Ethel Rae, j possessor of a well-train*dj unforced soprano voice of excellent Quality which should ensure her a place in comic opera or musical comedy in the brighter days to come after ■ fhfe war. Slie has, tod, I other essential personal qualifications for such work. Mies Eva Cardston, who, with Miss Rae, was "on" most of the evening, fully deserved the cordial welcome she received, as a bright and dainty little soubrette with a most agreeable Voice and unaffected, artless grac& of her own. The other numerous perfoTmcTS,apart from some graceful roller-skaters, especially the men, were not remarkable for anything beyond the enthusiasm they put into all they had to do, aninisted, no doubt, by the eloquence of the cause. Judging by the applause, .which was; frequent dnd cordial, "Watch Your Step!" met the public taste, \uid in addition to the merits of its owri it had behirid it the objects of .the philanthropic work i under whose auspices it was produced. The revue will be repeated this evening ; tlie profits (as announce*!) to go to the Returned Soldiers' Association.