HIS MAJESTY’S THEATRE.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume IX, Issue 696, 9 July 1903, Page 16

HIS MAJESTY’S THEATRE.

THE FITZMAURICE GILL COMPANY. Melodrama resumed its sway in Auckland on Saturday night at His Majesty’s, under very happy auspices. There was a packed house —not packed in the daily paper meaning of the word, but literally filled? to the doors —and Miss Gill and her capable company succeeded in rousing the enthusiasm of the audience to a very high pitch. “ The Prodigal Parson” is fully up to the standard

suffices for the Adelphi and the big theatres in Melbourne and Sydney. It is quite as good even as most of the melodramas that have appealed to the critical mind in Auckland, while it is infinitely better than some. The story of the play is not original ; a new plot in melodrama is not within the range of possibility, but “ The Prodigal Parson ” does not make so many demands upon our credulity, as many another does. A poor woman with a secret, marries a good man, and an evil man making a vile use of that secret, sows discord and. separates the man and his wife. There is' nothing improbable in this ; it happens in daily life. A blackmailer is murdered by an accomplice of the villain and the hero is accused of the murder, which is another not improbable circumstance ; and after many vicissitudes the wronged husband and wife meet and are reconciled in Germany. An author with a keener eye for effect would have sent them to Manchuria, or Borneo, or the North Pole, but the man that wrote “ The Prodigal Parson” was animated by an honest desire to make the story appear natural, also he did not depend wholly upon dramatic surprises in the shape of cosmic upheavals, but mainly upon rational dialogue and the good sense of his audience. Miss Gill is to be heartily commended for giving us a clean, well-proportioned play, which appeals to the hearts rather than to the nerves of her patrons. . As the heroine, Fern Kingstone, wife of Parson Kingstone, she herself admirably interpreted the playwright’s idea of a sweet woman bravely struggling under unmerited shame. She invested the part with those qualities of sweetness and grace which we have learned to associate with all that this graceful actress does. In the emotional passages she is a woman and not a syren or a petroleuse, or a fish wife in a temper, as some people expect the herione to be when her feelings overcome her. Mr Blake is a fine, manly personage in every role he undertakes, and as parson Tom Kingstone he gets through a difficult task with distinction. I am glad to say that the audience, and especially that) critical part of it next the ceiling, knows how to appreciate this clever actor’s methods, which, like Miss Gill’s, make for naturalness rather than blatancy. Mr Leo De Chateau is, an admirable comedian, and in “ The Prodigal Parson ” he has a more than ordinarily good opportunity to show what stuff is in him. Mr Wilton Power, Mr

Gus. Neville, Miss Dina Cooper, and. the other members of the company do more than well. What; little hitches there were on the first night have since been overcome, and the piece flows smoothly. The scenery is singularly good and appropriate, and the mechanical effects all that, could be desired.