THE "YOUTH" DRAMATIC COMPANY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 7004, 29 April 1884, Page 5

THE "YOUTH" DRAMATIC COMPANY.

"THE LIGHTS O' LONDON."

This drama, by Mr. G. R. Sims, was produced for the first time last night at Abbott's Opera House to a very large audience. The pit and stalls especially were crowded. It ia not at all surprising that this drama should have had an immense success in England and America. It is real to an intensity that could only have been worked out by a dramatist of exceptional power and skill. What has made "real" or "sensational" dramas hitherto attractive ,only to the. multitude, was the morbid aspect and unrelieved agony of them. In this pieoe humour and tragedy lie close together. One appears to beget the other. Laughter bubbles up through sensation. The mise en scent is a wonder of mechanical contrivance. Scenes change without interrupting tue progress of the drama. All the scenes are well painted. Some of them are very striking. The audience recogniscd the unusual ability in playwright, scenic artist, and actors by enthusiastic applause.

The plot would take long to unravel, although the main incidents are not many, Squire Armytage (Mr. J. P. Cathcart) has disinherited his son Harold for marrying a poor but respectable girl, Bess Marks (Miss Watts Phillips). The outcast son returns with his wife and seeks an interview. Clifford Armytage (Mr. H. E. Walton), a cousin,. in concert with a gamekeeper, Seth Greene (Mr. W. G. Carey), steal the family jewels, and beat the squire almost to death, accusing the son, who is convicted, escapes from gaol, and is hunted by the police. But Preene has seized the squire's will, which turns out to be in favour of Harold. Clifford Armytage has seduced the gamekeeper's daughter, Hetty Preene (Misß E. Fitzroy), under a promise of marriage. Successful scoundrelism lives brilliantly in London. But when the father of Hetty finds out her real relation to Clifford, he insists upon the marriage of his daughter with menaces. Clifford, irritated by threats, throws him into the Regent's Park Canal, from whence he is taken by. the wretched Harold, who with his wife is wandering homeless along the banks. These two plots proceed admirably together. There is. however, a travelling "showman" named Jo Jervis (Mr. J. R. Greville), Mrs. Jervis (Miss Flora Anstead), and their 'son Jim (Mr. Rogers), who by doing a kindness to the escaped convict are mixed up with the fortunes of the two sets of personages in the most ludicrous way. It is in the genuine skill with which this by-plot is woven into the texture of the other two interests that a good deal of the success of this piece is to be found. Miss Fitzroy's costumes, the handsomely arranged apartments in which Hetty Preene and Clifford live, the way. in which the whole of the scenery lifts and revolves, the real aspect given to the crowded borough market, the public-houses with the busy barmen and the tipplers inside, are all features which give a wonderful realism and sease of truthfulness to the representation. Although tbe stage is filled with unprepossessing personages one is not oppressed with the sense of vulgarity which attaches to what is apparently commonplace. Every scene is essential to the story. It is altogether beside the question to talk of these "unprepossessing" people as. not being very nice. But they have all a purpose which is clear and definite. The intensity is worked up with truly artistic perception. There is no obtrusion upon the progress of the story by narratives of more or less irrelevance. The drama tells its story. Preene prodnces the will, and denounces Clifford as receiver .of stolen goods. The scenery fits into the situations appropriately, and is strictly faithful as a representation of the places referred to. The play is in five acts. There are half -a - dozen admirable tableaux in it. As a play "The Lights o' London" is vastly superior to " Youth." It is a constructive piece of stage. and literary skill, to which the'keen yet sympathetic observation.of the author gives excellent point and effect. It will be repeated every night until further notice. ■ ■