ENTERTAINMENTS

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume VI, Issue 269, 30 October 1916, Page 2

ENTERTAINMENTS

“CABIRIA”—A MASTERPIECE. REALISTIC. FILM PLAY AT KING’S THEATRE. Much that is artistic, beautiful, thrilling and awe-inspiring is barred from reproduction on the ordinary dramatic stage because of the physical limitations imposed upon the playwright and the stage manager. Plays j have, therefore, to be written not as ■ the playwright imagines them but in i such a form that they can bo staged. The greatest stage producer Australia has even known was Bland Holt. The secret cf his success was realism. He would never allow an imitation effect when the real thing would possib.y be staged and he carried this craze for realism to the smallest details, it made a fortune for him. But the moving picture play has gone ! far beyond the utmost hopes of the : greatest of stage producers. Fairy tales j can be enacted upon the picture screen } so that they appear as substantial in- ■ controvertible tacts. The film play pre- | seats the fabulous with the same ; realism as the real. Nobody in the , 20th century really believes that, j Archimedes 2200 years ago by an arrangement of mirrors succeeded in setting fire to the Remap fleet of Syracuse. The people of the ancient world bei lieveu it implicitly. So did the people of the mediaeval world for they believed in miracles. None of them, however, j saw it done. That is reserved for the | incredulous people of the 20th century—those who know that the story is a fable. They can see it done before their eyes. It is shown in “Cabiria,” the historical war play which is to be screened at the King’s Theatre tomorrow’ night. “Cabiria"’ comas to New Zealand heralded as the greatest picture play ever produced. The episode mentioned above —the burning of a huge fleet of the olden days—is merely one of a great number of extraordinary features in this film which is 12,000 feet long, it teLs the story of the first great race war of history— the only race struggle till the present war broke out last year. The great events of that tremendous feud between two great nations are held together by the story of Cabiria —a Sicilian child who grows into a beautiful woman during tue course of the play and INs the most astonishing adventures. A delicate io»e story, a second skein of passion, and yet a third narrative of tierce intrigue run right throtlgfi tue drama. Its author was Gabrie.e d’Annunzio, the famous Italian poet, novelist and playwright who lias definitely turned to the picture screen to find expression of his' masterpieces. “Cabin” is the first of his great scenarios. It has already created sensations in New York, in Rome, in Paris and in Loudon. NOIE, —’Owing to the length of the picture the overture will start at 7.45. Picture commences at 7.50.