"THE KELLY GANG."

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume LVI, Issue 8629, 11 December 1906, Page 6

" THE KELLY GANG."

This highly sensational play was produced at the Masterton Town Hall, last evening, by Macmahon's new Dramatic Company to a crowded and most demonstrative audience. The performance did credit to every member of the Company, and tho many realistic incidents were admirably reproduced. The story told by tho play is reminiscent of about the last, and certainly the most sensational of Australian bush-ranging episodes. The staging was very effective, and hearty applause greeted each scene and incident as the performance progressed through \its thrilling chapters of crime and violence. The Kelly gang held supreme sway in a portion of Australia, in the year 1880. They scorned ordinary robberies, and devoted themselves to banks and large stations The large sum of £SOOO was offered by the Government of New South AVales and Victoria for their capture. Ned Kelly eventually met his fate on the gallows, while Dan Kelly, Steve Haft and Joe Byrne were shot dead by the police. After murdering a man •whom they suspected of being a "police spy, the Kelly gang took possession of the small village of Glenrowan, on the North-Eastern railway, between Wangaratta and .Benalla. kept all the inhabitants prisoners," and compelled some platelayers to take up a number of rails, believing that special trains, laden with all the available police in the district, would be sent to the scene of the murder, and by the removal of the rails would be wrecked. The gang, who were clad in armour made from ploughshares, intended to shoot, any survivors from the railway accident; and it is believed that their scheme was, when all the police in tho neighbourhood were hors dr. combat, to attack a bank at Benalla. Luckily, one of their prisoners got away, stopped the special train, and thereby saved the lives of the police, a large number of whom were on board. The bushrangers returned to Jones' Hotel, at Glcnrowan, where they made their last stand on 27th and 2Kb June. Every feature in the tragic episode was faithfully portrayed in last night's performance (though the riiia/e did not correspond with the actual finish as it took place —/•/:.. in the arrest of Ned Kelly), and acting, scenery, and stage effects were all to the entire satisfaction of the audience, who gave evidence of complete appreciation of the manner in which the play was produced. Mr Charles Blake very capably sustained the part of Ned Kelly; the representation being most life like and realistic. The other members of the gang, the members of the " foorce," a spy, sergeants of police, a bank and a station manager, a priest, the Kelly's relatives, etc., were admirably sustained, and the play, taken altogether, was one which would have attracted another large audience. The humourous incidents and by-play relieved the grim, tragic element which was inseparable from the story of Australian bushrauging, when the desperadoes knew that the inevitable end would be either a bullet or the hangman's rope. The scenery was excellently arranged and produced almost as much enthusiasm as the varying fortunes of the tragic drama which was being enacted, and which, at tiroes, was almost too sensational and realistic for the nerves of some of the audience.

The one night season of the Macmahon Dramatic Company was a pronounced success—a verdict which will be unanimously endorsed by all theatre-goers who were present last evening.