MISS RUTH DRAPER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23117, 16 August 1938, Page 3

MISS RUTH DRAPER

PERSONALITY SKETCHES SIMPLICITY OF EFFECT WHOLE GALLERY OF WOMEN The audience that filled His Majesty's Theatre last night saw Miss Ruth Draper, the famous American genius of the stage. To portray the various characters she represented, Aliss Draper used merely a shawl, a coat, a hat, or a negligee worn as occasion called for them over a charmingly graceful frock of ricli brown velvet, cut square to the neck and slightly trained. When playing the part of the lady of the manor opening a bazaar, Aliss Draper wore a black lace scarf and a shady hat trimmed with flowers. A parasol that she carried was used to express many things. As the "Irish peasant woman in "In County Kerry," she wore a little black shawl across her shoulders. In "Three Breakfasts," it was first a cardigan over the velvet frock, next a cream velvet morning negligee with lace sleeves, and lastly, as the grandmother, n little cream woollen shawl, that she wore. The most charming effect of all was when as the young girl meeting her lover in the "Church in Italy" she wore a black lace shawl draped over her head and shoulders and toyed with a crimson rose.

And so, without any facial make-up, with only these slight additions in her dross, Aliss Draper made a whole precession of women pass in the imagination of her hearers across the stage. Even the adjustment of a collar seemed weighted with meaning and became intensely Significant, building up her living characters.