FROM THE GODS.

Waipa Post, Volume XXI, Issue 1210, 25 February 1922, Page 3

FROM THE GODS.

SOME FAMOUS INTERJECTIONS. A month or two ago in the tranquil

town of Inverness I strolled one evening into the theatie where an excellent company was playing that most charming of Sir Jamesi Barr.'e's earlier comedies, " The Professor's

Love Story," (writes " J.M.D." in the London Daily Mail). In the middle of the delightful scene in whi'ch the rustic lover, Pete, endeavours to propose to the pretty servant lassie, and

strives to cover his bashful confusion by munching an apple, an impatient voice from the gallery suddenly shouted : " Get on, man ! Kiss her !' I'll haud (hold) the apple !"

On another occasion, in a Dundee theatre where a dramatised version of lan MacLaren's " Beside the Bonnie Briar Bush" was being played, I

was listening myself not altogether unmoved to the fiery denunciations of the stern father who thrusts his erring daughter out of his house for ever, when from the gallery a woman's voice shrieked, amid bursting soba : " Let her alone, ye cruel auld

deevil ! Let the poor lassie alone !" The ' students' nights" at the Edinburgh Theatre used to be grand occa sions. I remember one such night when some rather sentimental piece —the name escapes/ me—was on the boards. The hero was telling the heroine how profoundly convinced he

was of her love for liim. " I can see it in thy eyes." he cried, in tense, em-otion-laden tones. " I can feel it -in thy arms, thy lips " 'Capital diagnosis!" came in an approving shout from the gallery. Later in the play a gipsy was deal-

ing out her nostrums to an anxious inquirer. "Behold," she said, "here is a love-philtre which will make every woman thou desirest fall madly in love with thee " " Throw it up here !" cried the same stentorian voice. On another students' n'ght a well-

known actress! was playing in " Romeo and Juliet." She had come to her great poison scene and the crowded audience was watching her breathlessly. Her agonised hesitations, her shuddering doubts and fears, at last at an end, she was just raising the phial to her lips, when Gluck !" there broke, from the gallery that sound like unto the popping of a cork which is created by joint action of tongue and palate. The famous actress was furious. She swept from the stage, the curtain was rung down, and not until, it being again raised, the manager came forward and in the name of the audience made the most abject of apologies! would she consent to finish the act.

Once at the dear old Edinburgh Theatre "Faust" was being given, and I was listening, entranced, to one of the world's most famous tenors as he sang beneath Margherita's window.

" Margherite ! Margherite !" rang out the golden voice in a passionate

entreaty

Instantly from the gallery a deep bass took up the recitative, and with the broadest of Scots accents chanted "Arre ye comin' oot the nicht for a waulk ?"

\ Of a different phsychology from "Juliet," the singer joined heartily in the irrepressible burst of laughter which wept the theatre, then resumed his passionate appeal.