AMUSEMENTS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 769, 26 November 1886, Page 14

AMUSEMENTS.

j- “ HIS NATURAL LIFE.”

At the Opera House on Monday night, to a very large audience, Messrs Macmahon and Leitch’s Company produced the drama ‘‘His Natural Life,” which has lately been performed with great success in Australia. The plav professes to be a dramatisation of Marcus Clark’s celebrated novel “ For the term of his Natural Life,” but as a matter of fact it would better be styled a drama;performed upon some leading incidents of that book. It must be admitted at the outset that Marcus Clark’s book does not present an enticing field to the dramatist. The gruesome scenes,' powerfully depicted as they were, in the style generally called “ realistic, and simply hung upon a plot admittedly invented as something upon which to hang a series of sketches of convict life, are remarkable enough in the book, and are written with such ability and marvellous word-painting that they have, in that form, excited admiration and interest; but in a drama, if they were reproduced, they would not be calculated to adorn a tale, however aptly they might point a moral. The dramatist, therefore, takes the plot, makes the convict Dawes the central figure, introduces several scenes at the convict settlements; and altera the story so that there may be a little more love and a little more palpable villainy, and the piece may end happily. As a general rule this mode of treatment is the only one applicable in turning a novel into a play, except when the story has been specially-written with a view to being dramatised. It is one bf the most difficult things in the world to compress a long story into a drama. “The Woman in White,” and many other highly successful novels, though they give good situations and characters for the stage, in dramatic force are remarkable for their want of coherency and glaring breaches of all the unities. The dramatist in this case has had this difficulty to contend with. The play is a drama with all the sensations and stirring scenes of the most modern dramas, flavored strongly with the melodramatic everywhere. The plot .is, as might be expected, not particularly strong, and the dialogue sometimes lacks force. The mounting of the play was excellent. The scenery was really very fine; and the stage effects generally were admirable. The characters, of conrse, were not identical with those of Marcus Clark. Mr Leitch was exceedingly funny as the Rev Mr Meekin, and that was no doubt all he wished to be. His acting in the scene on the island, where the small party have been wrecked, was simply irresistible, Mr H. N. Douglas’ Rufus Dawes (or Richard Devine, was a very fair representation of a typical persecuted hero and gained for him a most enthusiastic call. Mr Robert Vernon’s Dr North was a performance which gave evidence of a knowledge of the character he was called upon to represent. Mr Montgomery’s Maurice Frere was also a piece of good acting. Miss Kate Douglas was effective as Sylvia Vickers, and Miss Flora Anstead was a capital Sarah Purfoy. There are a number of other parts in the cast, moat of which were well filled, while tho supernumeraries who represented the convicts were excellently managed.