“Quality Street”

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 236, 6 October 1936, Page 8

“Quality Street”

Although the average English history book contrives to make all its pages proud reading for English boys and girls, there are only two periods of English history which arc completely and gloriously triumphant—the age of Elizabeth and the Regency. There are, of course, other periods when the English whack the French or whack the Dutch or whack the Spaniards, but the Elizabethan age and the Regency are peculiar in that a brilliant achievement of arms was accompanied by a leap forward in English civilisation. While Wellington was driving the French from the Spanish Peninsula, Byron, Shelley, Keats and Wordsworth were writing their poetry, Jane Austen and Scott "were publishing their novels, and manufacturers were everywhere taking advantage of new inventions to increase trade and add to the comfort of life. While Nelson was sweeping the French ships off the sea, noblemen, gentlemen and other important rectors throughout the length and breadth of England were re-building their houses, laying-out lawns, walled gardens, flower gardens and shrubberies, developing prospects and vistas, buying pictures, stocking cellars and filling libraries, and ordering their local furniture dealer to provide them with tables, chairs, sideboards, secretaries, commodes, chests of drawers and washing-stands—all in the latest style. There are many intelligent people who look back to tho Regency as a model for the art of living, when comfort and elegance were the joint deities of home life, before the Victorians thought to increase comfort by slaying elegance. “Quality Street,” which is being presented by the Little Theatre Society for a three nights’ season at the Opera House, commencing to-morrow, Wednesday evening, is from the pen of the great Barrie (author of “Peter Pan”) and it is said to reproduce accurately the period of tho Regency.

A particularly strong cast has been engaged for a long period in perfecting the production, which is in the capable hands of Mrs Lorna Bristow. Among those taking part are Misses Patricia Lower (Phoebe), Joan Maunder (Susan), E. Ashby, J. Ramsay, J. Thompson, J. Bristow, L. D’Ath and V. Floyd, and Messrs Roland Allison (Captain Brown), Brian Louisson (Ensign Blades), Ray Stevenson (Lieut. Spicer).

The play is in four acts and concerns the vicissitudes of Misses Phoebe and Susan Throssel. Scenes include the period blue and white drawing-room, the tent on the lawn and the interior of a school for young people of “quality” in which the “ladies and gentlemen’ ’ perform a delightful gavotte specially arranged for the production. Tho frocking and furnishings are accurate to the period which is represented. A feature of the performance will be tho delightful musical programme arranged by Miss Mona Dean, where Miss Dean and either Miss C. Vickery or Mr F. Bull render simultaneously on two pianos such numbers as Beethoven’s “Minuet in G” and Boccharini’s "Minuet,” Mozart's “Allegro’ and "Arie” and Schon Rosmarin by Kriesler. The box plans are at Messrs Qollinson and Cuninnghame’s and it is hoped that excellent houses will greet this beautiful play.