HIS MAJESTY'S THEATRE.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XIII, Issue 801, 13 July 1905, Page 18

HIS MAJESTY'S THEATRE.

“ THE GIRL OF MY HEART.” CAST OF CHARACTERS. Will Stewart Mr. Charles Blake Major Fulton Air. J. Lambert Captain Bridge, R.N...AIr. T. Henderson Gunner Phillips Air. Launcelot Vane Peter ScraggsAir. Peter Saveri Ben Lanky Air. Leo Du Chateau Joshua Bradley Air. H. Douglas Private Tim Hooley, A1.L.1 Air. Lionel Walshe Admiral Rawlins, R.N Air. G. R. Alerriman SearleAir. Alfred Burton Dr. LadbrookAir. Fred. Edwards Gov. Dickson Air. Henry Fajie DemsterAir. E. Gunn Officer Air. Thomas Earle Airs. Stewart Airs. Barry Lane Sarah BradleyAliss Alay Renno Jennie WardenAliss Alay Granville Alary GrahamAliss Fitzmaurice Gill This piece, .a nautical drama in four acts by Herbert Leonard, was produced on Saturday night, and there was a crammed house to welcome back the popular artists, Miss Fitzmaurice Gill, Mr. Charles Blake, and the other members of the company. A good deal of expectation had been aroused by the play, but it was found to run on the conventional lines of modern melodrama, that is to say, there is plenty of love-making, not a little transparent villainy, and a considerable blending of improbability, the whole forming a . bill of fare which appeared to suit the tastes of the audience to a nicety, judged by the repeated outbursts o fapplause. The plot, which is rather too tangled to unravel in a few words, shows the love or two men for one woman, and the villainous methods pursued by one of them to gain an advantage over his more fortunate rival. Miss Fitzmaurice Gill was seen to advantage in the nart of Mary Graham (the Girl of Aly Heart), although the author has not given her many chances of showing her real power. Here and again glimpses of it appeared, notably in the scene, on the quarter-deck of the cruiser Challenger (which name, by the way, served to attract scores of sailors from the big cruiser in port), and also later in what is perhaps the strongest scene in the play, where Alajor Fulton is wounded by a runaway Marine, Miss Gill carried the house with her in her piteous appeal to her lover, Stewart, and her denunciation of her supposed husband, Fulton. Air. Charles Blake, who is a favourite with everybody, made a. very manly hero, and if somewhat over-serious at times, this was no doubt caused by the remarkably tight places he gets into. In fact, from start to finish the hero may be said to have a very bad time of it indeed, but Mr. Blake was recompensed for Will Stewart’s sufferings by many well-deserved rounds of applause. As Alajor Fulton, the villain of the play, Mr. Lambert was perhaps a little overweighted, but the part is a long and difficult one. The Major came in for plenty of execration at the hands of the audience, whose sympathies were, of course, with the hero, and this, of course, showed appreciation of the actor’s art. Air. Du Chateau got what fun there was to be extracted out of the part of Ben Lanky, an over-bibulous and amorous boatswain, who in real life would have been disrated without much hesitation. The author makes this sailor a man constantly looking for drink, attempting also to carry on a love affair with another man’s wife, and one who also is not above betraying a desertei’ to the authorities. Under the circumstances the fact that Mr. Du Chateau was able to keep the audience on hiu side speaks much for his powers of comedy. More amusement was caused by Air. Peter Saveri as Peter Scraggs, the keeper of a private lunatic asylum. In a simply impossible make-up Mr. Saveri had the audience in fits of laughter whenever he made his appearance. Mr. H. Douglas was rather amusing as Joshua Bradley, a laundryman, whose wife Sarah (Miss May Renno) is decidedly the better half. Miss Alay Granville did some realistic work as Jennie Warden, Air. Alerriman was satisfactory as Admiral Rawlins, while Mr. Henderson made the very utmost of the small part of Captain Bridge, and all the other characters were effi-

ciently represented. The scenery and dressing of the play left nothing to be desired, and the whole performance may be said to have proved an undoubted success. It has drawn good houses each night through the week. The next production at His Majesty’s will be Mark Waring’s dramatisation of Joseph Hocking’s great novel, “By Order of the Czar.” Mr. Waring has followed the book as faithfully as compatible with the essentials of dramatic representation. The tragic story of the beautiful Anna Klosstock unravelled with consummate skill keeps the interest tense from the initial act where the innocent Jewish maiden is ruined by the profligate Governor of the province and flung to the knout, and the plot is one which will be followed with keen attention throughout. There is often a tendency in dramas dealing with Russia to over-do the brutality of the piece, as it were, but in the play under notice the comedy element has not been neglected, and tlie jollity of the English people and other racial characteristics are shown with happy effect in the vicissitudes which carry them to various continental surroundings'. The A r enetian scene will probably be one of the most ambitious efforts of the management. One can hardly imagine a more congenial subject for a painter’s brush than the Grand Canal, Venice, gondolas flitting here and there with gallant gondolieri in flaunting raiment guiding them, the city en fete, flags flying, banners streaming, wreaths of roses garlanding, the battle of flowers waged in mimic war with all the vim of continental flower girls; guns booming, bells clanging joyous peals. The night closes down, the illuminations begin, the curtain falls. Such is the material with which Air. Alark Waring has supplied his drama. Miss Fitzmaurice Gill and the Messrs. MacMahon are determined it will lack nothing at their hands.