PRINCESS THEATRE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 7541, 19 April 1886, Page 3

PRINCESS THEATRE.

Tho final representation of Mr Darrell's sensational drama "Transported for Life," which was given at the Princess Theatre on Saturday evening, was in no respect less successful than the preceding performances by the Company. Sir Darrell played carefully and well. Bliss Mayor was often and deservedly applauded. Mr Oily Deering was intensely amusing, and the other characters were sustained with care and credit.

" The Naked Truth" is the name of an original drama from the pen oE Mr George Darrell, which

is to be produced this and to-morrow evening. It was'first, played at the Opera House, Melbourne, some three years since, and was afterwards performed iv Sydney and Adelaide. The drama embraces five epochs, an episode, and an event; the epochs being the several stages in the career of a young man of position in society, who, swayed alternately by the good aud evil

impulses of a strangely emotional nature, finds himself placed in positions which society com-

pels him to adopt, but against which, the nobler promptings of his nature urge him to rebel. The drama earns its title from the undisguised language with which the principal character often stigmatises what he regards as moral hypocrisy. There are two highly sensational scenes in the play—one being an attempt to drown a woman in the Thames and her rescue by a boating party; and the other occurring during a stage representation of a play, in which the audience are for the moment unconsciously made some of the actors. Several of the characters in the actual drama are seated in the boxes, watching, in common with the audience, another play, in which a Roman vestal is made to appear before the Tribune. The lady enacting the Roman vestal is the heroine of the real drama, and seeing her false friends in the boxes, turns from the purpose of the moment and denounces them in passionate and relentless language. Mr Darrell is to appear in the character of Adrien Devereaux, whilst Miss Mayor will sustain the dual part of Muriel Montrose and a Roman vestal. The play will be staged with entirely new scenery.