A Memorable Event

Manawatu Times, Volume LVI, Issue 7068, 30 January 1933, Page 8

A Memorable Event

DAME SYBIL THORNDIKE AND ENGLISH COMPANY

Messrs J. C. Williamson by arrangement with tho Cherniavsky Bureau, London, announco that tho only provincial centro to bo visited by Damo Sybil Thorndike and her West End London Company will bo Palmerston North, and the occasion should bo a memorable one of Mr. Bernard Shaw’s masterpiece, Saint Joan,” has been selected for production in tho Opera Houso on Thursday next. The scenery, properties and lighting effects will arrive in charge of the mechanics on Wednesday and an absoluto replica of tho metropolitan productions may bo looked for. Most popular prices for a theatrical attraction of this magnitude are advertised and it is important to note that tho box plan opens at tho Central Booking Office this morning. Wo append a brief extract from a recent critiquo in the Evening Post: Coming to the acting and production of “St. Joan,” it can be said without reservation of any sort that Damo Thorndike has made it difficult for any successor to sustain the role. It is reassuring to learn that tho play as first produced by her and her principal associates received the hall mark of approval of Mr. Shaw himself, and no doubt there was no departuro on Saturday night from tho excellence of tho production that had tlio advantage of his personal attention. Damo Thorndike imparted the impression that she was unconscious of tho existence of any onlooker across tho footlights. She displayed fine artistic restraint in her method and endeavoured with conspicuous art to give force and expression to Mr. Shaw’s indictments of insincerity and cant and at tho same time compel sympathy with Joan in her desperate efforts to enlighten those who obstinately refused to be delivered from the darkness and confusion of their own making. She rose to lofty dramatic heights when she knelt alone in prayer in the great ambulatory of Rheims Cathedral; she attained heights above Everest in the epilogue, when she cried, also in prayer: “How long, 0 Lord, how long.”