THE LORCNETTE

Observer, Volume XIV, Issue 792, 3 March 1894, Page 7

THE LORCNETTE

Saturday is notoriously a bad l show night ' in Auckland. And yet the Opera House was packed from floor to ceiling last Saturday night. Which proves that the night makes no difference with Aucklanders so long as the Bhow is good. It is seldom, very, very seldom, that we see such acting as this in Auckland. Let us make the moat of the Brough-Boucicault people while we have them with vs — and that will only be a few nights longer.

The opening piece, 'A Village Prie3t,' Bet all London talking when it was first put on at the Haymarkefc Theatre. Probably few pieces have ever given rise to so mnch controversy as this. The play is an extraordinarily powerful one, the story it unfolds one of absorbing interest. The situations are so telling, the acting so wonderfnl, so natural, so free from staginess, so true to life, that stage and ' make-believe ' vanish, as one looks and listens. It is the triumph of art, the triumph of realism.

Very briefly told the story is this : Judge D'Arcay, when the curtain rises, has been loiig dead. His gentle, loving, wife reveres his memory as that of a saint. His son shares his mother's estimate of the dead man. And yet that dead man was a hollow fraud, a whited sepulchre. He first seduced his friend's wife, then murdered her husband, then sat in judgment on a man wrongfully accused of the crime and instigated the jury to convict him. Then he proceeded to pass sentence of death on the prisoner — and exphed almost immediately afterwards — apoplexy.

With his last breath he charged his wife to care for the infant daughter of the man he had so cruelly wronged. That man's death sentence is commuted to 20 years' imprisonment, thanks to the influence of the kindly-hearted wife of the dead judge. Nineteen years later, (at the time the story opens) the wrongfully convicted man escapes from his prison. He is consumed with anxiety to see his child — and when he meets her she shrinks from him with a scream of horror, as a murderer !

The woman with whom the dead judge carried on the intrigue still lives. Her daughter becomes engaged to the judge's son. To that son the escaped convict protests his innocence. The son utterly refuses to believe him. But by-and-by, and little by little he becomes convinced that a terrible miscarriage of justice has been made. He seeks out bis father's mistress — the mother of his own fiancee — he learns her shameful secret, he strives to get justice done to the innocent.

But one man knows the whole wretched story and that man's lips are Healed It is the village priest who learned from the judge's own month in the confessional his terrible secret. For 20 years does the worthy old priest endnre the agony of keeping silence. At Jast, seeing how the dreadful secret of the dead is blighting the prospects of the living the old priest speaks. He denonnces the infamons judge as the real onlprit and proclaims the innooenoe of the hunted convict. A moment later soldiers arrive to arreßt Jean, just reconciled to his daughter.

The only person ignorant of the real facts of the case now is the gentle Madame D'Arcy , She arrives in time to hear Jean's arrest. She cannot witness it, for she is blind. She counsels the supposed criminal to * take his just punishment,' adding * it is only for a year.' ' But the shame,' says her son, 'is for a lifetime.' ' But,' says the good old priest, solemnly, as he stands bare-headed, a striking figure in that stirring picture, * the glory is eternal.' And ao Jean, sooner than break the heart of the woman who has-been a mother to his child, allows the soldiers to march him back to his cell. And the curtain falls.

A word as to the acting. Mr Titheradge as the venerable Abb 6is superb. Words fail to do justice to this oreation. It must be seen. Mr Broagh as Jean Torquenie, the escaped convict who has had to pay the penalty of another man's sin, playH with extraordinary power. Hia first meet-

ing with hia child when she shrinks horrorstricken from him thrills the house. Mrs Brough as the Comtess Tremeillan plays a most difficult part with consummate art. The temptation to over-colour, to saorifioe art for sensational effect, would be too strong for a less capable actress to resist.

Mr Ward as young D'Aroay (the judge's son) is not very strong. His performance is uneven. Miss Eomer as Madam D ' Aroay is perfect. She makes the character most lovable. Miss Major as Madeleine, the Abbess shrewish but good-hearted housekeeper, gives ua a capital bit of character acting. As for the two girls Marguerite (Miss Gibson^ and Jeanne Torqaenie, (Miss Temple) they are neither of them remarkable.

' Niobe,' by Messrs H. and E. Paulton (Harry Paulton was one of the famous Strand Theatre comedians in the palmy days of the Strand), replaced 'A Village Priest ' on Tnesday night. A greater contrast couldn't be imagined. ' Niobe ' is certainly very funny. It's initial performance here attracted probably the largest house ever known in Anckland. Long before 8 o'clock every seat worth having was filled, while by the time the curtain rose a large number of cane-bottomed chairs had been carried into the circle, and still they came ! — the late arrivals — and looked wildly around in quest of somewhere to sit down. Impossible to acoommodate them all, so they had to stand. Bat the per formance was worth standing for.

The motif of ' Niobe ' is not very new or original. Thu same idea has been used up in ' Pygmalion and Galatea ;' the same idea has been turned to account in that very funny booklet ' A Tinted Venus,' by Frederick Anstey. But, bless you, what's the odds' so long as you're happy ? And you're bound to be happy if you go to see ' Niobe.' You may have jnsfc lent a man money, or have a bill coming due on the morrow, or be expecting your mother-in-law to come and stop with you for six months or so. But Niobe ' will make you laugh. You won't be able to help yourself. The idea of bringing a statue to life, and of making that statne walk out of a cabinet into a modern drawing-room, greatly to the astonishment and dismay of the respectable, middle-aged business man who is ' having a quiet evening ' all to himself while his people are at the theatre, is whimisioal in the extreme.

4 Niobe,' naturally enough, knows nothing of modern ways. She has oome to life after a little nap of three thousand years. Her presence (in the flesh) is extremely embarrasing to Peter Amos Dunn, the master of the house — she ohristens him ' Petramos ' on the spot. How Peter fares when his wife returns and finds him talking to a strange young person of attractive appearance, whose presence in the house he is utterly unable to explain satisfactorily, how ' Niobe,' whose ideas are not the ideas of to-day, and are slightly unconventional, in fact, treats the wife, the endless complications that ensue, the ridiculous things that are said and done in consequenoe of ' Niobe's ' coming back to life — all this I have no space to desoribe. I must leave it to your imagination.

Mrs Brough makes an ideal ' Niobe.' Her exquisite figure and charming face lend themselves to the character, while her sense of humour, so keen and yet so refined, completes her qualifications for the part, which might have been written for her. Mr Brough's Peter Amos Dnnn is admirable. His versality is extraordinary. One night he is thrilling the house as the hunted, desparing oonviot. The next he is making the people hold their sideß. Mr and Mrs Brongh divide the honours in ' Niobe.' The rest are simply nowhere. The managerial arrangements for the very few remaining nights will be found in our advertising columns.

On Saturday afternoon Miss Leila Adair, known to fame as the * pluckiest woman in Australia,' purposes doing: the great parachute act, a la Baldwin, at North Shore. The fair Leila will go up in a balloon and ' drop from the clouds.' The inflation of the balloon will take place at 330 p.m. The ascent will be made at 4. Admission (including return steamer) one shilling. Miss Adair has shown us a sheaf of press notices bearing eloquent testimony to her extraordinary courage and the thrilling nature of her wonderful performance. We have, unfortunately, no spaoe to quote extracts, but we hopo te be ' there to see ' on Saturday and will bring our little note-book along.

Wm. Lonergan, who has been absent from Auckland tor tho last nine years' in which time he has been employed in the leading houses of Sydney and Melbourne, has returned and is offering his experiences to the public ot Auckland and showing the moßt fashionable Btyles and economical ways of dressing as worn on the other side. He has now joined the firm of Lonergan & Son, Wyndham-Btreet.