PRINCE OF WALES THEATRE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume III, Issue 899, 1 October 1866, Page 6

PRINCE OF WALES THEATRE.

We incur some risk of bocoraing so familiarized with first class amateur performances, that we shall return to soverer rules of professional histrionics with coldness. We have become accustomed to brilliant things of late, and Tuesday furnished another instalment to the experence we had obtaiued already that the service are as devoted "on the boards "as thoy are on wooden walls, in the midst of illimitable salt water. On Tuesday the officers and men of the Australian Squadron gave a performance at the theatre, which was not merely excellent, but had a variety of merit which could not be looked for from more artistically trained performances, perhtps not in any other place or any other circumstances. The occasion was announced to be in aid of a fund for the erection of a monumont to the memory of the officers and men of the Itoyal Kavy who have fallen in the late New Zealand War.

We truri that nc person will be so cynical as to inquire how far the means were appropriate to the object in view. There o< uld be but one fetling uppermost on such an occasion, and that was the memory of those who were companions in arms, when they ookei their bist, contributing to each other's enterlainment as loyally as they met their fato in of battle. Men —such good men. and true—must have been Temembered then, when tho laugh was loudest and the success most triumphant.

The pioco selected was the pretty comedy entitled " the Jacobite," tho principal roles being sustained by Mr. T. Sutton (Sir Kichard Wroughton), Mr. George Wittey (Kdward Murray, the Jacobite), Mr. tj. Hill (John Duck), Mr. S. Hamilton (l.ftdy Sommerford), Mr. J. Granger (Widow Pottle). Mr. H. Kogors (Patty Pottle). The piece was exceedingly well played, and at the oonclusion the actors woro greeted with unanimous applaud. Tinwas followed by a piece entitled " A Frolic of Fortune," which, we suspect, if not original last night, hue bpen brought by those who represented the dramatis petsonce. Its effecta go to make up the very broudest fun imaginable. The plot tends to exhibit the giiuchfries of clown suddenly acceding to a lordaliip. Kobin, the hero, was impersonated by Mr. D. Young, and making allowance for the very excess of abandon and drollery which it exhibited, was in the main a first-rate performance. It carried the audience in sustained hilarity from beginning to end. It would be an improvement if somehow tlie clown could be changod into something externally passable before the curtain drops. Mr. B. Dickenson played the part of ft gra«ping old steward with admirable effect and in capital moke up. Nancy Snack was played by Mr. S. Hamilton, and we have rarely seen so good a representative of the goutler box out of trousers and in petticoats. The young gentleman was certainly ono of the largest contributors to the general result. Marirery (Mr. J. Granger) was another good representation of the irascible materfamilias, while Dolly (Mr. IX. Rogers) waß smirking and gushing. We think, howover, that more attention might have been paid to the details —that is, the outline of the orinoline, Sr.c. But a performance of really great merit (whether considered as amateur or otherwise) was tho rendering of the famous burlesque "Medea." The most versatile aotor of modern times made his reputation in ttiis very pioos. Almost everybody must have seen it played, and we confeis we never felt more genuine pleasure ir witnessing its reproduction than we did on Tuesday. The parts were as follow:—Creon (&fr. T. T. Andrawartha), Jason (Mr. T. Cape), Orpheus (Mr. W. Wiseman), a Oorinthian, (Mr. 0. E. Q-rissell), Lycaon and Me'anthe (Two Suoking Nelsons), Oreansa (Mr. T. Chowne), Sarah (Mr. O. Bell), and facile princeps—Mr. Harwood, as Medea. The whole affair, in costume, in scenery in grouding, in point and completeness, was an unequivocal success. There is only one thing we would desire, and that is another representation before the gentlemen to whom public entertainment and charity owe so much shall leave these shores. Let it be for the more complete fulfilment of the object, if they will, there could not be one which would toad more 10 make their own name* or those of their fallen comrades, more gratefully remembered by the people of these shores. One feels the foroe of the beautiful passage in Wordsworth :—

" An unelaborate stone May cover him : and by its help, perchance, A century shall hear his name pronounced, Willi iuiug< 8 attendant on the sound ; Then Bhnll the slowly gathering twilight close la litter night." We have never seen a more crowded, enthusiastic or fashionable audience within the walls of our local thealre<—Sept. 2a,