Pollard's Opera Company.

Hastings Standard, Issue 143, 12 October 1896, Page 2

Pollard's Opera Company.

The Pollard Company concluded on Saturday night the most successful season of any company that has visited Hastings. The Princess Theatre was again filled, and the management must be well satisfied with the patronage extended throughout. The popularity of the company is increasing every week, and in every town in the colony they are looked forward to, and on their arrival they are accorded patronage that 110 other company can command. On Saturday night "Uncle Tom's Cabin was staged. In other towns this has proved a big draw, but it cannot have been staged as it was in Hastings. There was plenty of comedy business, and very little of Uncle Tom. The scene between Marks the lawyer and the two nigger boys might with advantage have been omitted, for there was nothing approaching fun in it, and it was out of place in what is termed a great " moral and religious drama." The Uncle Tom of Mr W. Percy was a well-studied character, and it is to be regretted that he was not played up to. Little Eily Sullivan was also good as Eva, and Miss E. Metcalfe made a splendid Eliza Harris. In doubling the characters of George. Shelby, the friend of the slave, and Simon Legree, a hard - hearted driver, Mr Alf. Stevens rather complicated matters, for it was hard to disassociate the two characters. H. Quealey was very funny as Marks, as was also Miss May Beatty as Aunt Ophelia, Miss Maud Beatty had little to do as George Harris, but she did it well. Cassy was a good character in the hands of Miss Marie Metcalf. Others in the caste varied from fair to medium. Had the audience got a little more of Uncle Tom and a good deal less of meaningless frivolity perhaps they would have the better appreciated the drama. To-night the company appear in Napier in "Bif Van Winkle." 1