SHAKESPEARIAN SEASON.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19780, 29 October 1927, Page 13

SHAKESPEARIAN SEASON.

CLOSING NIGhT'S TRIBUTE.

There can be no doubt of the esteem in which Auckland audiences hold Mr. Allan Wilkie. He is the one man who has .given New Zealanders a working knowledge of Shakespeare as a writer of plays that can be acted and not merely read for the sake of appearance and then forgotten. His month's Shakespearian festival came to a close at His Majesty's Theatre last evening and the entire company was accorded a great farewell. "Hamlet," the great tragedy, was the play chosen to ring down the curtain on a memorable season and it was played with wonderful insight and dramatic power. At the conclusion of the play, numerous bouquets were handed to the ladies of the company, and Mr. Wilkie, in a short speech thanked the audience for the cordial reception given his company throughout the season. He had heard it said that he had contributed, within the space o£ a month, to the intellectual development of the city. He hoped this was the case, and if it was, it would not be entirely his contribution. Such a statement was a tribute to the memory of the master dramatist of all time—poet, philosopher and playwright ki one. Mr. Wilkie said he hoped to return to Auckland in about eighteen months and on that visit to stage six new Shakespearian plays, some of which had never been staged in the Dominion previously. Every member of the company was warmly applauded before the audience was content to leave the theatre.