HIS MAJESTY’S THEATRE

Evening Star, Issue 12418, 3 February 1905, Page 7

HIS MAJESTY’S THEATRE

( —A Royal Divorce.— Mr J, C. Williamson’s Dramatic Company presented ‘A Royal Divorce ’ for the second time at His Majesty’s Theatre last, evening. The bouse was a magnificent i one, every part of the building being I packed, and standing room being m some I demand, _ especially downstairs. As on ! the previous evening, the interest whicfl' always centres round the life and doings of “The Man of Destiny” was stimulated in a high degree by Mr Julius Knight’s fine impersonation of Napoleon. From the moment that he entered, wearing the green uniform of the chasseurs of the Guard and the well-known grey overcoat, made familiar to us by the historians of the time,, until the final tableau depicting, the closing scene at St. Helena, the | attitude of the honso was one of rapt at- j tention. And this is saying a great deal, i for the Napoleon of the play is not the i Napoleon whom Baron ' bin and Bourn-1 enne have drawn, and the marshals are not the men whom Marbot knew. Indeed, the piece bristles with anachronisms, 1 of which the designation of Angereau as “general,” although he was one of the original creation of marshals, the presence of Augereau and Murat at Jenappe on the eve of Waterloo, and the visit of the exEmpress Josephine to the British ship Northumberland are only a few. That these things never jar, never even obtrude, must be accounted a great tribute both to the charm of the piece itself and to the, manner of its presentment. Mr Knight’s impersonation was a powerful one, and at the end of the fourth act ha was honored with an enthusiastic recall. Miss Maud Jeffries, as the unfortunate Josephine Beauhamais, fully maintained her high reputation as a dramatic star, and in an easy and expressive way brought out to the full all the dignity and pathos of the role. AH the other members of the cast acquitted themselves well, and among these Mr G, P. Carey as the inebriated peasant Grimand, Mr j Herbert Leigh as the wily Tallyrahd, ; Mr W. Rosevear as the Third Veteran, ! Mr Harry Plimmer as Marshal Angerpau, I and Miss Unie Russell as Stephanie Beauharnais deserve special mention. One of the great features of the piece is, of course, the tableaux. That depicting Napoleon leading back the remnants of the Grand Army from Moscow is a master- ! piece in stage effects, and in response to [ the prolonged applause which greeted it | the curtain had to be raised and re- i raised many times. The beautiful music incidental to the piece was well rendered by Mr Diederichsen’s orchestra. ‘A Royal Divorce ’ will be repeated this evening. —The Eternal City.— To-morrow evening Mr J. C. Williamson will present Hall Caine’s dramatisation of his own powerful novel ‘The Eternal City.' In setting himself the task of carving a play out of the novel he must have found himself confronted with many difficulties. To compress into a three-hours’ traffic of the stage a story to which he devoted over 700 printed pages was no light undertaking ; yet this is wliat he really had to do. There was but one way to satisfactorily achieve the task, and that was to leave aside some of the many political and religious details with which the book abounds, and confine the play to the love story, which is the kernel of both. It is presented as on© of strong human passions, in which the fates of the principal people are worked out through the rush of circumstances in which they become involved, with no thought nor intention that either political or religions sensibilities shall be wounded or aroused. One of the features of the production will be the magnificent music which was specially written by Mascagni, composer of ‘ Cnvalleria Ruaticana,’ and Miss Maud Jeffries as Donna Roma Yolonna has met with exceptional success >n this very powerful character; whilst, tho Press speak in most glowing terms of Mr Knight’s performance of David Rossi.