"KING LEAR."

Waikato Times, Volume 96, Issue 15358, 5 October 1923, Page 6

"KING LEAR."

TRAGEDY FINELY INTERPRETED. At the Sydney Consercatorium, before a crowded audience, Mr Wilkie and his company produced for the first time Shakespeare's tragedy of "King Lear." Tiie part of Lear is recognised as one of the most difficult roles that any actor can be asked to portray; but Mr Wilkie marshalled all his powers of acting, his knowledge of human nature, and made a pronounced success. /The misery that has fallen upon him by the manner in which his ungrateful daughters, after his generosity, tre'at him enlightens him in the misery which laps the life of all human beings around, and makes him a sympathetic old man. He appears, to his conventional friends, to have become insane—lt is not real insanity; it is the partial madness which comes to people who have been living for so long, so to speak, in the unreal atmosphere of kingship, and who suddenly find themselves in intimate touch wirh the great bruised heart of the world Mr Wilkie acted throughout as "to the manner born" and was truly every inch a being. Mr Augustus Neville made a strong but when necessary, tender Earl of Kent. His deportment was of a faithful and honest friend and servant of his King. The Earl of Gloucester was played by Mr William Lockhart, the sterling quality of ,whose work has much impressed Sydney theatregoers. Edmund, the bastard son of Gloucester, was played by Mr Claude Saunders in an heroic and soldierly manner, which might account for the tragical' attraction which the two sisters felt for liim. He played his difficult and treacherous part with credit, and lent able support to the cast. Mr Plumpton Wilson's interpretation of the Fool was one of the distinct features of the production. He was a semi-wise fool, and gave a touch of poetry to the strange and whimsical part; his oft-debated words, "And I'll go to bed at noon'' are well realised by the audience for after that he drops out of the play, and no word is uttered to tell us of his future fate. Edgar was played by Mr Leslie Manners in a conscientious manner, and he invested the part with a manly quality. His known powers of elocution were well displayed, and his gallant energy does mucli to relieve the cheerless character of the ending of the play. The King of France was ably played by Mr Anthony Clarke. He spoke the famous lines at the time when he was offered the dowerlcss daughter of Lear, with distinction: — Fairest Cordelia, that art most rich, being poor; Most choice, forsaken, and most loved, despised! Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon; Be it lawful I take up what's cast away.

Miss Hunter-Watts made a pathetic and beautiful Cordielia. She acted as if the part had been written for her particular disposition. When she was disinherited by her father, the King, she received the blow with maidenly dignity, .and when the reconciliation took place all her dramatic power was brought to bear on the presentation cf the character. Miss Irene Webb made a convincing Regan, and displayed much dramatic talent at the part when her husband is gouging out the eyes of Gloucester, and she was encouraging him in his inhuman act. Miss Lorna Forbes appears to have something in her nature which made it well-nigh impossible for her to rise to any height of anger, or meanness, and in consequence she experienced some difficulty in the rendering of the part of Goneril, a loveless, spiteful woman, but, on the whole, she was successful in this role, which is so foreign to her. The production throughout was of a high order, and the whole of the company enhanced an already good reputation on Saturday night.