Little Southlanders’ Plays

Southland Times, Issue 25312, 15 June 1935, Page 21

Little Southlanders’ Plays

ATTRACTIVE, FROCKING. Originality .and brightness will be the keynote of the frocking for the Little Southlanders’ plays, which will be presented to the public next Thursday and Friday evenings at the Municipal Theatre. Miss Lavender, the heroine of “Rosebuds and Royalty,” like Queen Mary, chose the period frock which suited her best, and her poke bonnet, pannier and frilly petticoats form a contrast to the modem frocks of the children grouped around her. No flower. play would be complete without a fairy, and this time there are gaily coloured butterflies and flower folk. One particularly attractive flower-child wears a frock with myriads of variegated sweet peas on a background of green, and if it were not for the kindly smile on the face of old Tom, the gardener, he would be an incongruous figure in a garden where song and dancing go hard in hand with laughter.

Rollicking smugglers are the most striking figures in "Doubloons and Dreams,” and the coastguards in their neat white uniforms with red stripes are almost sombre in contrast. The hero, Keith, the small boy, who even dreams about smugglers, is a pyjama clad figure; and his "sisters” and “brother” are in school uniform. Modem evening frocks and furs suggest a modem setting for “The Photo,” in direct contrast to the costumes of “A, Damsel in Distress,” which go back to the 14th century, Yvonne, the distressed damsel, and Sir Dermod the Dismal appearing in mediaeval garments, the splendour of which is diminished only when Mephistopheles, Sir Dermod’s talking steed, appears on the scene.