THE BLAND HOLT SEASON.

New Zealand Times, Volume LV, Issue 2042, 27 October 1893, Page 2

THE BLAND HOLT SEASON.

The Opera House was thronged last night, when f * The Trumpet Call ” was performed for the last time during the presentseason. To-night, the play “A Million of Money/* one of the most important of Mr Holt’s repertoire, is to be produced. In this work, the hero, Harry Dunstable, is a young- officer, who borrows =£3oo from a bookmaker named Dick Bounder, the tool of Major Belgrave, the chief villain of the piece. The major is in love with Mary Maythorne, who is secretly married to young Dunstable. Dunstable’s uncle dies and leaves him a million of money, with which the young man resolves upon seeing life. He lias an evil genius by his side, however, in the person of Major Belgrave, who having laid him under an obligation when he was poor, fastens upon him now that he is rich, not only for the purpose of blooding him, but in order to involve his victim in such evil courses as will compel his wife to seek a divorce, and thus enable the major to renew his own addresses to her. Ho enlists the agency of Stella St Clair, a beautiful adventuress. Dunstable falls under her spell, and she induces liim to believe she is in love with him. A highly dramatic scene takes place in the Bohemia grounds, where Stella’s husband, who has become almost delirious with drink, exposes the jilot, denounces the major, and dies in a spasm of violent emotion. Harry becomes estranged from his wife, and exchanges into a regiment ordered for India, Stella (who has now married a wealthy young fool named Frank Hastings) going out in the same ship. The transport is wrecked on the way out, and Dunstable, Stella and Hartings are the sole survivors, being east on a desolate reef in mid-ocean. Hastings, on discovering that he had married a pro-, fligate adventuress, goes mad. His wife dies, after imploring and receiving Dunstable’s pardon.. The episode is supposed to be seen in a vision of the night by Mrs Dunstable, and in the closing seen© her husband returns to England, and is restored to the affection of his wife, and then to fortune by a South African gold mine. There, is a comic underplot carried on by Tom Cricklewood, a theological student of sporting propensities, who renounces his intention of entering the church, and tries to distinguish himself as a comic singer.