AMUSEMENTS.

Evening Star, Issue 12396, 9 January 1905, Page 4

AMUSEMENTS.

'THE; BONDMAN.'

The attraction at; His Majesty's Theatre on Saturday evening was 'The Bondman,' \ ™?! a £ satioll b J" Maud "Williamson of Hall Caine'e novel of that name. ' The book, as will be Remembered, is intensely and sombrely tragic, and the very thin vein of comedy introduced by the plavwnght does not ; in any great• measure lighten the gloominess of the action. The piece, however, introduces one or two rather c.everly-drawn characters, whose delineation affords considerable scope to the actor It is only fair to say that these determining characters were very capablv sustained by the members of the Woods-Williamson Dramatic Company. The plot deals with the vendetta imposed upon one Jason Orry by his dying mother, who has been basely deserted by her husband, Stephen Orry. The husband has gone to tho Isle of Man, where he has married another woman, and by her has a child, Michael Sunlocks. Thither Jason is x to go and to kill his father, or (if his father be dead) Michael Sunlocks. Throughout, however, Jason's great heart and the workings of fate combine to prevent him from accomplishing his vow. Ho actually unwittingly rescues his father from shipwreck, and learns subsequently from his dying lips that the prime objective of his vendetta is slipping from him. In attaining the secondary objective he. is no more successful. He falls in love with Michael Sunlocks'g intended wife, is cast with his as yet unknown half-brother into the sulphur mines in Iceland, escapes with him after a terrible explosion, in which Michael loses his sight, and protects and tends him till they are again hunted down, and Michael claimed by Denmark as its victim. From this point to the tragio climax the sentiment is identi•«Y , that ex P rep s e d by Sydney Carton m A Tale of Two Cities': " I would give my life to help a life you love beside you." Prior to being cast, into the sulphur minesas a traitor, Michael had been a hifh official m Iceland, and had married that Greeba with whom Jason had been in love. She has heard of the escape? and faJowed, and is frantic at the recapture. The officers do not want Jason, who is an Icelander, but the blind Michael, who is a subject of Denmark Michael is imprisoned on the island of Grimsby, there to await the despatch which shall determine his fate. Bat , Jason, the great-hearted, contrives a method of escape for his half-brother. He smuggles the blind man, his wife Greeba and their little child out of the prison, takes the prisoner's place, and on the arrrvahof the despatch which spells execution suffers death at the bands of, a squad of riflemen for the love he bears Greeba. The action of the play embraces the period of about eight years. Mr Alfred Woods, of course, essayed the tragic role of Jason Orry, and proved quite equal to its very onerous demands. He was always picturesque and convincing, and in the more PW S ant / c^ nes showed a restraint that is worthy of all praise. Mr Woods's strongest admirer cannot but admit that his voice i 3 not always under complete control, and his restraint m this direction on Saturday evening was none the less welcome for its unexpectedness. Mr C. B. Bryant was more or less successful as Michael Sunlocks, his S rjr^ ver y weU d <>™ Meed, ww ate v u , vna "* for A d«™ Pairbrother Groeba's father, and made what he could out of a somewhat indefinite char- *?£• u Vcin of comcdyTas su£ phed by Messrs J. H. Lambert, Peto J - K F ? Thme as Thurston, Stean, Gentieman John (Adam's rascally sons), and Mr Harry Douglas was forcioll (though a trifle indistinct) as the reSnt Stephen Orry Tho interpretation^flhe character of Greeba did not impose any great strain upon an actress of Miss Williamson s experience, though it must not bo supposed that ,he merely Ires JTand footed the part prettily. The occasion was not Slhe^ b ? b its tound the actress want ng. • Miss Alice effective fasbop, and a number of minor roles adequately sustained bv Mksel Carl Doyle Maggie M oerts. The scenery throughout was on a very complete scale, the scenes Xnictme the shipwreck at the port 0 f BuK and the explosion in the sulphur mine thorough v deserving the applause they evoked I

•THROTBH THE MTORCK COBTCT ■ Moor is borne in mind? tho plot of tto d vorce court drama will not need much ex £ZS"p . o{hel, ° Lord Robert Penarth but see him clearly as a "Ay-washy, characterless noit of J, Guzman di Mendoza, a SpaniA Creole whose Mtionßhty ,s indicated by his frequent re! nn^ 10n ° , the A T d "Car-r-r-r Jb»,» aSI one is on the road to comprehension Let W? ST™*!?, tha * Dcsdemona is Lady Dolores Penartli, wife of the'peer of that wViS*,? 16 T*™ d --indent i her half-brother, Leon di Valdia. and all the postulation will have been done that is necessary for a comprehension of the central-characters. Incidentally the divorce proceedings and the surrounding events make one also acquainted with reveral other people. For instance, there is Peter Pettigrew, K.C. a curious commixture of legal conventionality, Pickwickian amorousness and solid simplicity; and with him must be coupled (at the risk of offending the lady's prim propriety) Mips RachaelDobfcms, the Penarths' housekeeper, as natural an old lady as ever wire corkscrew curls and donsie draperies. Then there is Dinah a young woman of burnt-cork exterior, intensely eagw to be mistaken for a negress, and Patsy Rsfferty, a body-servant, whose brogue is .coindigenous "with the shillalah. Also the Hon. Algernon Fitzmaurice, a youth whose mother keeps him in Eton jackets and accessories till at the age of twenty : one he asserts himself, and who assnils everybody with the drawlfnl query: "Say! You don't think I'm weahly silly, do you? Eh: what*" The mother of this young maft by the way, is Lady Fitzmannoe, said to have been once a society beauty, and her propensive attitude towards Lord Penarth causes her to hate his wife, and so lend her aid to Mendoza, the villain. By using Di Valdiz to plav upon the sisterly affection of Lady Dolores, thisMendoza manages to compromise her in the eyes of her misband, the Spanish gentleman retaining in hiß possession the proofs of_ the relationship between the compromised_ ones. This is the primary cause of the divorce proceedings, which end in the nuking of a decree nisi, with custody of the child, in favor of Penarth. The usual zeal to give the disciples of Right a satisfactory dig at the slaves of Wrong in every situation leads to some inconsistency in the court scene. Brother Pettigrew,' who appears to show cause why a decree should not be granted, manages,* by guileful crossexamination, to so cunningly draw an important admission from Mendoza that that gentleman iB forced to ejaculate "Car-r-r----ramba!" in bis most guilty 'fashion, and His Honor the Judge, too (no less a personage than Bir Philip March), indicate pretty clearly that he does not believe the evidence of the Spaniard, who is a principal witness. All the same, he makes the decree. But after all, this is only a small matter, for the divorce would have to eventuate in any case to make the story, and, robbed of the business consistent with a stage representation, the court scene was very creditable. It seems almost superfluous, but perhaps it is as well, to mention that that essential canon of melodrama, the ultimate vindication of Right and discomfiture of Wrong, is not departed from in "Through the Divorce Court.'. This is, of course, necessary for the peace of mind of the average audience, whose keenness in distinguishing between the virtuous and the sinful as they are represented on the dramatic stage is well known. A telling instance of this happened on' Saturday night. The villain said something to the heroine that was not in itself particularly villainous: but the perception of a. lady in the auditorium was not deceived. "Oh, you wretch!" she hissed out in such a tone that Mr McndnTia most have felt Ma jjosi-

lion keealy, even though a number of other peopk did lough. ■- ' ThrMgh tho Divorce Court,' though hot as sanguinary or nervea production as some, has many excellent playing qualities, and the Anderson Company seemed to make about as much of them as posaible. The cbmwly work, which was mostly of the burlesque order, was well dona all through, and the laughs that it brought were genuine. Tho principal funny people were Mr Crosbie Ward, who«e reprssentation of Algernon Fitzmaunce was thoroughly sound and finished in every way, and Mr J. P. O'Neill as Patsy Rafforty (Mr CNeM's Irish had the genuine flavor about it). Miss Maiae Maxwell, too, in the guise of Dinah, was responsible for a good deal of fun. Mr Geo. Cross made what he could of the part of jTL- I *' Peparth ' and Mr Godfrey Cass cid his best to look villainous as Mendoza. Mr Cas.3 is to be thanked for avoiding the unnecessary bursts of tragic fervor so commonly seen in parts such as his. But perhaps ho is a littler over-careful and a trifle lacking in " life." Miss Ada Guildford was woll cast as Lady Dolores. She went through her part with a quiet restraint that was much more forceful than the overflow method so common. Miss Georgie Leighford, as has been already indicated, was altogether natural in the role of Miss Rachael Dobbins, the housekeeper, and, after all, to arrive at naturalness in such a part is to reach the ultimate of success. Mr Edmund Duggan made an excellent Peter Pettigrew. Miss Kathleen Lorimer was cast as Lady Fitzmaurice, and the other parts were in good hands. 'Through the Divorce Court r will be repeated this evening.