HIS MAJESTY’S THEATRE.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XV, Issue 868, 25 October 1906, Page 16

HIS MAJESTY’S THEATRE.

WEST’S PICTURES AND THE BRESCIANS.

It is more than twelve months since the popular combination known as West’s Pictures and the Brescians last visited Auckland. During the interval its triumphs have been many. The combination wears well, and its hearty reception at His Majesty’s Theatre on the opening night of the season, and again on Monday and Tuesday evenings, affords the best possible proof that it is still catering for, and is in sympathy with the public taste. Animated pictures, especially of the kind exhibited by the West combination, have evidently a wonderful fascination for the average man and woman, and the children simply revel in them. Thus crowded houses are the rule wherever the West-Brescians appear, and Aucklanders show an even increased zest in the enjoyment of the high-class entertainment provided. The pictures shown this week have been of the very best, the opening series being “A Naval Nursery,” an especially fine film depicting life on board a training ship and the manner in which the young blue jackets are educated in port. Another very fine series presented scenes from the great historical pageant presented at Warwick Castle last year, with illustrations of the days of the Druids and of the court of Queen Elizabeth and the quaint dances and courtesies of the Elizabethian age. The fine old Castle and picturesque grounds, in which these scenes were enacted, added greatly to the effect of the series, which, like its predecessor, was greeted with prolonged applause. Another remarkably fine set of Canadian pictures gives scenes in the great Dominion, opening with the arrival of a great trainload of immigrants at Montreal and thence quickly transporting the onlookers to the great plains of Manitoba and on to the harvesting fields, where great combines and all the latest harvesting-

Miss Adelina Martinengo’s violin solos are also much appreciated items, which meet with the inevitable encore. Her rendering of such difficult selections as “The Butterfly,” and of the simpler “Home Sweet Home” is simply perfect. In their trio, “The Merry Gipsies,” Messrs Chenoweth, Mills and Hayward, are equally successful, and Mr; Rudall Hayward’s bass solos are also a feature of interest in the programmes,' encores following his several appearances. Miss Antonia Martinengo’s soprano singing, and Mr Fred Mills’s humorous patter songs complete an attractive programme, which is at once bright, sparkling and entertaining. As the combination is billed for a six weeks’ season, with complete changes of programme every week or so, the public will have every opportunity of becoming better acquainted with the West-Brescians.

puts it, is not absorbingly interes.ing. Miss Tittell Brune, accomplished actress as she is, could not make of Mary Ann anything but a rather sickly kind of character. Some have objected that one who was originally a rosy-cheeked country girl would not be the pale-faced drab that Mis?, Brune makes her, and that the portrayal in many removes from the author’s concep.ion. This, of course, is largely a matter of opinion as to what sort of girl Mr Zangwill intended his heroine to be. Diamond earrings for such a part seemed a little out of drawing, and he constant changing of the gloves, which at first seemed somewhat humorous, became by the constant repetition a little wearisome. Miss Brune was at her best when the few pathetic touches were introduced, notably in the farewell to her pet canary, and also, when despite her accession to a huge fortune,