OPERA HOUSE.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XII, Issue 716, 26 November 1903, Page 18

OPERA HOUSE.

(By

“Comus.”)

THE DAMPIER COMPANY. •. —=— 7

The plays staged by the Dampier Company have all been distinguished by 6areful and appropriate mounting as well as by efficient and even brilliant acting. “Vendetta,” the clever dramatisation of Miss Corelli’s novel, which was produced on Saturday and two succeeding evenings, was exceptionally well nut on. The plot is well-adapted for dramatic nurposes, and the highly-wrought passages have been eagerly, seized by the playwright to make sensational effects. It is of course pure melodrama, and as such

appeals to that class of playgoers which demands highly-spiced fare. So long as the demand exists, so.,long will the best of our actors and actresses be constrained to cater for it. Mr Dampier and his Company certainly do all that is humanly possible to keep up the standard. We have had a good deal of melodrama from time to time so devoid of art that it is quitei (exhilarating to witness plays informed bv a cultivated intelligence. Such every production by Mr Dampier undoubtedly is. In “Vendetta,” he himself displays singular nower, and the part of the frivolous, heartless wife is presented by Miss Lily Dampier with equal effect. The weight of the task rests upon the two principals, and it is only because the spectator is carried away by the realism of the scenes that he fails to

appreciate to the full the amount and high character of the work underlying it. The support accorded to the principals was quite adequate. Mr Rolfe’s conception of Guido, the treacherous friend, was in all respects admirable, and good

work was done by Miss Rose Dampier. Messrs Gus. Neville and Leon Roche. The mechanical effects were excellent, theji earthquake sensation especially. Last night the Company produced the authorised version of “For the Term of His Natural Life,” by arrangement with the widow of the author, Mrs Marcus Clarke.