BIG LONDON SUCCESS.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 579, 8 October 1932, Page 25 (Supplement)

BIG LONDON SUCCESS.

“ The Barretts of Wimpole Street.” “ The Barretts of Wimpole Street,” which, as most theatre-goers know, ran simultaneously in London and New York for over two years, and which taxed the capacity of the largest theatres in Sydney and Melbourne for several months, is now repeating its success in New Zealand and will l»e presented for the first time in Christchurch at the Theatre Royal on Saturday next. The box plan for this play will open on Wednesday at The Bristol. Messrs J. C. Williamson, Ltd., under whose direction this delightful romance is being presented, have spared neither pains nor expense to give Dominion theatre-goers a replica of the London production. A complete English company, headed by the famous English actress. Miss Margaret Rawlings, has been imported, together with the full setting and lighting effects, all under the personal supervision of the producer, Mr Gabriel Toyne. A brief resume of the story is as follows:—Robert Browning, a vigorous poet and idealist, first meets and woos the Invalid Elizabeth Barrett in 1884, and marries her two years later. That is the charming romance the play embodies, but the strange background to the love interest is the stern, fanatical, almost sinister figure of Barrett pere. There is one scene in which Barrett pleads for his daughter's affection, using as a lever the story of his estrangement from her mother, and that she (Elizabeth), of all the eleven children, was born in love. This scene is so revealing in the unfavourable light it throws on the character of her father that at its conclusion she loaves the home to join Browning, to whom a few days previously she had been secretly married. Elizabeth’s love scene with Browning and the unpleasant scenes with her father when” she realises his distorted mentality, are high lights in a remarkably well conceived and ablv written play. One can imagine the extreme demands made by such a character as Elizabeth—the frail, tired invalid with a gleaming soul; the loving daughter and sister, driven to desperation by her impossible father, and seeking the sunlight of Robert Browning's sturdy affection. There are glowing moments of comedy, of charming Victorian chatter, to make contrast with those wells of despair.