UNIVERSAL BARD

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 85, 20 October 1928, Page 29

UNIVERSAL BARD

SHAKESPEARE IN SAMOA (From "The Post's" Repr«»ntatlv«.) LONDON, 7th September. In an articlo appearing in the new issue of "Black-wood's," Lady Alice Fcrgusson says that "R.L.S." has been supplanted in ■ the affection of the Samoans by Shakespeare; not, be it noted, Sheakespoarc in. his'owu tongue, but Shakespeare's stories, told by Charles Lamb and performed in Samoan by natives. She describes a performance of "The Winter's Tale," given in her honour by Sanioans at Apia. There was first, as curtain-raiser, "a wonderful rhythmic performance—not a dance, not physical drill—something different from either, but akin t< both." Then the curtain opened on an empty stage, with a screen across tire back covered with three pieces of tapa cloth. The characters, Leontes and Hermione, the little Mamilius, the King of Bohemia, Antigonus, and the rest, cntertered t~ the sound of "a little tinkly tune," struck up on the mandolins. The scene on tho "Coast of Bohemia" was evidontly played with appealing realism, for a live baby was introduced for the shepherd and his wife to be drawn about the stage in a little cart and eventually taken away, howling lustily. Lady Alice Fergiisson says that "the acting was good throughout; not one part was weak. The characters were, it must be remembered, always ! Samoan; they behaved, spoke, moved as Samoans, but somehow you felt that Hermione was really injured, Lcontcs really jealous, really penitent—in short, that the emotions were felt, and that the players had thoroughly entered into the spirit of the story."