LONDON PLAYHOUSES.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 13557, 7 November 1907, Page 3

LONDON PLAYHOUSES.

(By ALYS LOWTH.)

LONDON, Sept. 27. Quite a theatre-building epidemic has raged in London during the last few yearsj and we are most remarkably rich in play-houses now, though the plays are very often not worthy their setting. ' '

This, unhappily, is the case with Seymour Hicks' latest production, "The Gay Gordons," which opened this week at the new theatre in the King's Way, off the Strarifc, the "Aldwych." The scenery in the first act (there are only two) is exquisitely lovely. It shows a sheiling in the Highlands on the 12th September — the purple heather carpeting the hills, a shimmering lake in the distance, and a pretty old gray stone cottage in the foreground. In front of the cottage Ellaline Terriss is discovered dressed in gipsy garb, preparing a,meal at a table set out with flour and other ingredients. To her come a group of young sportsmen who, With much merriment and some- horseplay, introduce themselves as the' promise of the peerage, md among other things announce their contempt for Americans and their determination that one of them shall "sacrifice" himself in marriage with the daughter of" a Yankee millionaire at present their host. »Then Miss Terriss lets the audience into the secret of her disguise — it is she who is the sacrificial lamb, and she has no intention at all of submitting to the ordeal. She speedily proceeds to fall in; love with a common soldier who arrives on the scene and announces himself as the son of the cottage woman. He — of course it is Seymour Hicks — loses his heart to her at first sight. And then it turns out that he is the long-lost heir to the dukedom of Meltrose, and complications arise, since' the fair gipsymillionairess has sworn never to marry a title. The play goes with a swing, and Ellaline Terriss is always' charming, but the music is without mmelodyy y and thp acts are too long. Zena Dare, who plays the part of cousin to the sheiress, is a little disappointing. She is clumsy, compared to Ellaline Terriss, who is petite, graceful, dainty, and light on her feet as a fairy. And, oh! the heat of that theatre! Surely it is the worst ventilated house in London!

Far more comfortable and airy is the other theatre recently built by Mr Hicks (and called after him) in Shaftesbury Avenue. But the jilay now running there,, "The Hypocrites," is in Mr Henry Arthur Jones' most harrowing vein of sermonising. The acting is all that can be desired — too realistic, in fact, since the play is so depressing. It turns upon the old; old story of the girl betrayed, the man false, persuaded by his family into an engagement with a spotless and most marvellously angelic heiress. Of course it all comes righ^ in the end, but not until the audience has had a thoroughly thrilling representation of feminine heroism and self-sacrifice on the part of the injured lady; and of determination to cover up her son's sin and obtain the marriage on which she has set her heart, on the part of the. youthful, vitlain's mother. But nothing was exaggerated, and there were many refreshing gleams of humour in the picture of contrasts between the theory of morality as applied to otherjs and as personally exercised. Miss Marion Terry, sister to the ever-delightful Ellen, is the worldly but devoted mother ; a new and very clever young actress, Miss Doris Keane, is the heroine, who is supposed to be a. Canadian alone in England, i '

Among so many new play-houses Mr Cyril Maude's old "Haymarketf' holds its own for comfort and design, and tbe play now drawing to an end of a most successful run there, is one of the brightest and best comedies have seen for many a day. "My Wife" is translated from the French play by Messrs Gadault and Charnay, and the title-role is played by the sweetest and most bewitching little lady that treads the boards. Miss Marie Lohr has been playing under the Kendals in the provinces for some time past, but is new to London. She is so pretty, and so perfectly suited to the part that even were the rest of the cast poor one would wish to see the play again in order to see her act. But Mr Aubrey Smith and Mr A. G. Matthews are both great favourites on the London stage, so .Miss Lohr is well seconded. She is supposed to be the only child of a choleric merchant and his fashion-plate wife, and to avoid a marriage they have planned for her while' she desires to marry an ineligible i young man, she proposes to her mid-jrtte-nged guardian, Mr Smith, that he should marry her until her lover returns and is able to claim her, when her husband-in-name will set ber free to be "happy ever after." This is, of course, a strictly private sequel to the betrothal which delights her parents beyond measure. All goes well until the bridegroom finds that his affections are more involved than he had realised, while the bride in all. innocence arouses his jealousy by flirting with the men who pay her attention at the Swiss chalet where they go for the honeymoon. How the I>ride eventuaUy falls in love with her own husband, after he has decided to leave her to hex, parents and return to his untroubled bachelor existence, is the theme of an amusing third act, and so ends this strange courtship. ,

Mr Cyril Maude himself is engaged in portraying the "Earl of Pawtucket" !in the re-built snd re-christened old "Avenue," nov called "The Playhouse." As usual he has a loveable character to take upon his shoulders, And all goes marry as a marriage-bell as He follows a beautiful American and her plain but pursy relations all over the globe, until at last he, contrives to make the acquaintance of his inamorata, who of courso is delighted to become his Countess.

One of the thoroughly amusing plays now on is "Mrs Ponderbury's Past" at the Vaudeville. Mrs Ponderbury (played by Miss Marie Illingfton) is a strongminded lady with a golden reputation for all the virtues, who rules her household, and particularly her nervous and down-trodden spouse (Mr Weedon Grossmith), with a rod of iron. Their subjugation has been effected mainly by an act of heroism on her part, of which a silver fruit-knife, hung prominently upon the 'wall, is the abiding witness. And everyone, before they leave the room, has to make solemn obeisance to tlie relic. But Mr Ponderbury, when he gets an opportunity, sheds his chrysalis-shell,' and becomes a very gay butterfly indeed. And in one of these flights Mrs Ponderbury catches

him in most compromising circumstances with a gay widow (sometime a music hall star) who; to her immense annoy* ance, has. established herself- at the Ponderbury lodge-gates, f Thereupon., sad consequences are about to descend upon the/ cowering rogue of a husband when deliverance appears in the form of an old school-mate of his, a sailor, who proves to have been the "other party" in the storY of the fruit-knife. According to Mrs Ponderbury a man who had paid her .some slight but unwelcome attentions: on her way home by train from London, had followed her to her residence, and.(thfere| just as Mrs Ponderbury, in the seclusion of a bed-room-balcony, was about to* eat an orange, had climb.cd up and attempted to kiss her. . This the highly enraged and insulted lady had quickly resented, and with the fruit-knife as her sole weapon, had vanquished the marauder, who fled at sound of coming footsteps. But the gallant captain had a vastly different complexion to put upon the tale. And in all innocence that his friend and host was the husband of the lady of his ancient adventure, he told it. Follows tie joyiipf jfflie husband, quick to seize the opportunity^ lor revenge ; the utter surrender of the wife ; thY triumphant emancipation of a rebellious niece, and a fitting and proper picture of domestic felicity with the man as head of his house ! (To.be continued.) •