ENTERTAINMENTS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 317, 5 July 1912, Page 8

ENTERTAINMENTS

EMPIRE PICTURES. There was a good attendance at the Empire Picture Palace last night, \vhe<i the present programme was. screened for the second time. A number of magnificent pictures were shown, a' drama by the Tannhauser Co. receiving special attention. In this drama, the onlooker is taken away from a fashionable ballroom it|o a scene in the Stone Age, when, a. man had to prove that he was a man by doing <leeds. In this case the hero rescues the fallen goddess from the tribe'* wrath. Besides this a full programme of the latest scenic and dramatic filma was screened. One beautiful picture showed the sea in its different moods, and also depicted life-saving appliances in uie.

A GIRL'S TEMPTATION. A large and enthusiastic audience was present at the Theatre Royal last evening, when Mr. Geo. Marlow's Dramatie Company played, for the first time here, the remarkable and enthralling drama entitled "A Girl's Temptation." The story itself is simple enough, but amply fulfils its purpose, inasmuch as it holds the attention of the audience consistently throughout the piece. The skeleton of the plot is of a familiar and highly popular order, illustrative of the frequently futility of villainy, and the true merit of the rare pearl of virtue. Roguery and integrity, strength and vacillating weakness, are curiously yet ingeniously intermingled, and the result is a play of really high merit. Stirring situations are plentiful, yet not overdone, and for the most part they are well-timed. The humorous element is present in sufficient force to add acceptable variation, and presents amid bursts of laughter some truisms a's deep as any pourtrayed in the more serious passages. Mr. Cecil Mannering, a3 Guy War- « ren, the prodigal son of a millionaire, and a man of considerable loyalty and honor, played his part to the full, and imparted to the piece sufficient realism to •earn the warm approbation of last night's j audience, although his task was full of ■ complexities and difficult phases. Hope- ] lessly enamored of a working girl, when his father cherishes more ambitiou* dTeams, he passes, in the course' of a. highly dramatic scene, from the paternal roof, and with the optimism of youth as the only counterpoise to an empty t exchequer, issues forth to find work and i a home for his bride to be. From the ■ fierce grief and agony provoked by his discovery of apparent disloyalty on the part of the girl, he grasps despairingly at J the consolation of an u£ter abandonment j to drink, and he has well become a, I drunkard when he is induced to return home and claim the girl from whom he I has been separated so long, and appear* } before the fall of the curtain in very much the same character as at the rise. He is convincing throughout, and did not overdo parts which presented many pitfalls in this direction. Miss Louisa Hampton gave a creditable interpretation of the part of Kate Stirling, the working girl whose pretty face was the cause of so much trouble. She depicted well the plight of this luckless heroine, j her fight against poverty and starvation, 1 and the splendid courage which, in the ending of the story, earned for her a just reward. Mr. • Herbert Linden, a* j Mark Klaw, a gentleman with enor- ! mously developed proclivities for carry- , ing out schemes of villainy, satisfied the audience, while Mr. J. P. O'Neill, as Sammy Sniggles ("a limb of the law"), made some fun, and extracted from hia part all the mirth there was in it. Mis* Harrie Ireland, as Lady Constance Heathfield, sustained well the role of this haughty scheming person. Among the other characters, that veteraa actor, Mr. P. Scully, who has forgotten, more | plays than most of us have seen, gave an admirable old-man characterisation of Geoffrey Stirling. Mr. Andrew Cbirke hag also to be congratulated upon his in-, imitable presentation of a member of the much-maligned "foorce." Among lesser parts, 'Miss Pattie Gourley was a charming and endearing Mrs. Stirling. Miss Elsie Prince, as Annie Brown (a victim of temptation), acEed remarkably well. The audience followed the various events with enthusiastic interest, applauded joyously the triumphs of the hero, and condemned with zealous hissing the machinations of the villain. Oh the whole, the company is a good one, and the members make the most of their respective and sometimes difficult parts, without any obtrusion whatsoever.