AMUSEMENTS.

Evening Star, Issue 13099, 4 November 1908, Page 6

AMUSEMENTS.

PRINCESS THEATRE. The Wide-world Pictures continue to draw large audiences at the Princess Theatre. The same programme will be repeated this evening. MARK HAMBOURG. To-night, in Her Majesty’s Theatre, Mark Hambourg opens his Dunedin season of three recitals. The famous Russian pianist | will be heard in one of his most interesting , programmes, which is specially attractive l to students, commencing with Bach’s Toccata and Fugue (D minor), tianscribed by Tausig. Beethoven's ' Moonlight Sonata’ will then be heard, followed > by a delightful group of Chopin, in- ! eluding his Nocturne (G major), Etudes I (E flat and G flat), the latter the oxhilavut- j ing black-note study. Preludes (B and D flat). Mazurka (B minor), and the we!!- | known Polonaise in A flat—altogether some of Chopin’s greatest works. I'irally a composition of the pianist’s own-—‘Ga-votte Moderne’—and finally that tcur-de-force ‘ Midsummer Night’s Dream’ (Mcn-delssohn-Liszt) will be given. The recital will commence at 8.15 p.m. The second recital is to-morrow evening, when Chopin's famous B flat minor Sonata, -with the ‘Funeral March,’ will be given. ‘ THE MIKADO.’ The week’s run of • The Mikado ’ at His Majesty's by the Dunedin Operatic Society terminated last evening, the audience, as on previous nights, being large and enthusiastic. It has been decided to give two more performances of the opera, the nights selected being Monday and Tuesday of next week. ‘ MRS WIGGS OF THE CABBAGE PATCH.’ On Wednesday next, at His Majesty’s Theatre, for a season of six nights, J. C. Williamson, in conjunction with Liebler and Co., of New York, presents the worldfamous comedy-drama ‘Mrs Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch.’ Seldom does a play present one fresh and striking type, but in ‘Mrs Wiggs of the Cabbage ‘ Patch ’ are four that everyone who sees the play remembers with equal sharpness or pleasurable mental definition. Around them are gathered a score more characters and types, however, and each role is fastidiously cast. In casting the Australasian Company great pains were taken to make the players fit their roles as though moulded to them, and the success attending the endeavors is sufficiently attested by the fact that the play, which is now in its fifth year of enormous business in America, and has also passed its 500 th performance at Terry's Theatre, in London, made an instantaneous and emphatic success in Auckland, where it has just concluded a phenomenally successful season. Book plays, as a rule, are not long-lived, but ‘ Mrs Wigcs ’ bids fair to run on for a generation. It is already an American humorous classic, and as the public waited long for a great woman humorist, so, too, it will cling long to such a striking conception as that of ‘ Mrs Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch’ and the satellites of good humor and innocent jollity around her. The play is as clean and fresh and morally uplifting as possible. After the average problem play, it is as refreshing as a breath of morning after a night of champagne. Dear old kindly Mrs Wiggs is the archdeaconess of American fun. Moreover, she has the approval of the Rev. Charles Wagner, who says that hers is “ the temple life lived humorously.” The box plan'will be open at the Dresden on Saturday next. PHYSICAL CULTURE* CLASS. The Methodist Ladies’ Physical Culture Classes, under the direction of their instructress (Miss Gilmore), gave an entertainment in the Early Settlers’ Hall last night. The audience~a largo one—showed every appreciation of the exercises so gracefully undertaken by the senior and junior pupils. These were body exercises and dumb-bells, Indian clubs, and double wands. In a later portion of the programme the classes undertook action songs, and a prettily-conceived march (‘Glowworm march’), in which the combined clubs united. The whole of the work was an object lesson in the value of physical exercise of the sort, properly taught, to equip the femld body with suppleness ■ and clothe its movements with grace. The remainder of the programme followed the style of the concert programme. The.contributions were as follows Pianoforte duet, Misses M’Kay; songs—Mr Simpson, Miss Harvey, Mr J. Deaker, Miss F. Ackroyd, Miss W. Kerens, Mr M‘Calluin, and Miss Gilmore; Highland dance, Miss Ethel Carter ; bagpipe selection, Mr M'Callum ; violin solo, Miss Eileen M'Kay, Mr J. Deaker’s song, ‘Ada’s serenade,’ of the humorous order, was provocative of much laughter.