DUNEDIN SHAKESPEARE CLUB.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20501, 31 August 1928, Page 12

DUNEDIN SHAKESPEARE CLUB.

" THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.” It is surprising, since the Dunedin Sha! espeare Club holds only three readings a year, that it should have chosen for last night's performance one of the great dramatist’s least notable works. Shakespeare would lose no whit of his greatness, and the club would still be well provided with material, if ” The Merry Wives'of Windsor’” were deleted from the modern corpus. Nevertheless, the large audience that filled His Majesty's Theatre last evening could not complain of the selections that were made from this inglorious story of the ; rascally Falstaff. The reading was an ; unqualified success, and the cast is to be i congratulated upon the excellent manner in which it presented the best passages of ■ a play-that must lack the characteristic grandeur of Shakespeare since it was written hastily at the behest of Queen Elizabeth, who was curious to see I'alstatf j in love. . 1. “ The Merry Wives of Windsor is a piece that gives half a dozen of the cast a great deal,to do, and the rest very little. Falstaff, the two wives, their husbands, and the plausible but delightful Mistress Quickly carry the burden, of the reading, but Mistress Anne ..-and her suitors, Dr , Cnius and Sir Hugh Evans and Mr Jus- ! tice Shallow find plenty to dp. ' Sir John Falstaff loses all his carefully-thought-out and original philosophy in this play, in which he is subjected to the most humiliating indignities, but Mr H. : W. Hunter read the part in such a man- ; ner as to invest his rather sterile role i with a'joviality worthy of the fat knight | in those Loudon days, when he was more fortunate in his Rabelaisian frolics. At no time did Mr Hunter fail to convey the full humour of his passages to his audience. The jokes regain much of their freshness when rolled off the tongue in the appreciative style that was a feature of his reading. The wives, Mistress Ford and Mistres., Page, provide a great deal of amusement, but Mrs W. J- Low brought to her performance a freedom • and grace which was lacking in the case of Miss A. Campbell as Mistress Ford. Both, however, accomplished their rather onerous duties very capably. Mr C. J. L. White, as the jealous Mr Ford, was convincing in his vehemence, and in some of . the more emotional , lines of his part he reached an admirably j high standard of fiery eloquence. Mr r R. H. Wilson was trjic to type as the uxorious Mr Page, who would listen to no scandal about his wife. Mr A. L. Maclaren, as Slender, the unwi ling suitor for'Mistress Anne’s hand, had no easy task to read into his passages the callowness and lack of sophistication which the lines demanded, but he exhibited an aptitude for simulation and eloquent inflection that won him continued applause. Mr W. F. Abel, who w’as to have taken the part of Justice Shallow, was Hot present owing to indisposition, and Mr n. H. Osborn filled the breach to perfection, ©spGci&Uy in view of the fcict tli&t he lino received very short notice., Mrs Murray achieved a great success as Mrs Quickly, and her readings were all received with enthusiasm. She showed a remarkable insight into the character of this garrulous Elizabethan busybody. Mr H. Chapman, as Sir Hugh Evans, the Welsh parson, and Mr W. E. Dali, as the choleric French physician, had difficult moments, but both were very effective. Mr J, B. Flynn, as the jovial host of the Garter Inn, displayed a ruggedness that befitted the part. , Others in the cast were Miss H. Smith (Mistress Anne Page), Miss R. Scott (Robin and Rugby), and Messrs C. Smith (Fenton and one of taistans sharpers), W. B. Quennell and R. Simpson (two other sharpers). Miss J. M’Lennan acted as announcer, and Mr H. Chapman was chairman for the reading. During the interval Miss Helen Gardner entertained the audience with two vocal items, for which she was loudly applauded. She sang Puccini’s They Call Me Mimi ” and “ When Love is Kind,” an old melody arranged by A.L. As an extra she sang “ Iho Songs My j Mother Taught Me.”