THE RECITER'S ART

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 22, 26 July 1927, Page 5

THE RECITER'S ART

ALEXANDER WATSON

It lias been written of Mr. Alexander Watson that he has not only voice and dramatic technique but "the dignified yet friendly mastery oE an audience which makes him instantly on good terms with his hearers." It is this latter quality—the workings of which are indefinable, and rooted in personality—that gives Mr. Watson his main grip as an elocutionist, and last night's audience in the Town Hall Concert Chamber quickly responded to the charm. It was an audience of notable appreciation, but could have been larger. Mr. Watson quickly took it into Dickens for a long journey—long in point of time, though nobody thought so, as every sentence held. The story of the cheap-jack and the deaf and dumb waif, "Doctor Marigold's Prescriptions," was the subject selected, and the elocutionist explained how Dickens himself, as a reciter, preferred this short story of his. nnd wrote an abridgement especially for the purpose. As the cheap-jnek, auctioning from the foot-board of his cart, jokes away his wares to the crowd with a laugh that smothers tears for the tragedy within, so also is the audience moved alternately, at the reciter's will, from gay to grave. Part 2 of last night's programme began with Calvcrley's "Gemini and Virgo." A beautiful feature was Mr. John Drinkwater's "The Crowning of Dreaming John," picturing in wonderful tints the reaction of the Nature-lover from the formal city to the wilds in which he finds peace and love, and where nil the spirits o£ the elements assemble on his return to crown him King. In rather similnr vein is "Bredon Hill" (A. E. Honsnian). "The Elf Child" discloses that well of imagination, the child mind, and all tlie wonderful awesome forms and vapours that issue from it when the agency of the occult is used—wisely or unwisely— to reinforce good, manners. Perhaps the most wonderful pearl in the cluster is the unpronouncalbe "Imphni" — unpronouueable by all save Mr. Watson, and under his management the word becomes the most expressive in the language. Pleasant memories must have been revived for many in the audience when a selection ("Conn goes hunting") was given from "Conn the. Shaughraun." This concluded the set programme, bill as an encore Mr. Watson gave Kipling's "The Shut-Eye Sentry," and even the driest individual present must have felt his heart beat in sympathy with the bibulous captain, his non-com, foster father's, and the delighted privates. To-night will be a Kipling night so far as the first part of the programme is concerned; the Kipling selections will iuclude "The Ballad of the Bolwar." In the second part Dickens ("xlie Flight of Little Em'ly"), A. H. Miles, S. W. Foss, and Hilaire Belloc will provide the fare. In the hands of an artist like Mr. Watson language and imagery take on a new vitality, and even the best-read passages broaden and deepen and become more satisfying. ■