HIS MAJESTY’S THEATRE.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1514, 1 May 1919, Page 34

HIS MAJESTY’S THEATRE.

COMIC OPERA SEASON. “MAYTIME”—THE STORY. The following is the story of “Maytime,” the new musical play to be presented by the J. C. Williamson Royal Comic Opera Company at His Majesty’s Theatre on Saturday May 10. When the curtain rises the heroine, Ottill’e Van Zandt, picturesquely appears in the cream lace and flounced dress, dark side-curls, and rose-wreath of 1840, a most becoming period. It is her l‘6th. birthday, and she is the heiress of the wealthy Colonel Van Zandt (C. R. Bantock), fathom-deep in love with Dick Vayne, her father’s cooper-apprentice. This scene in the old garden of the home in Washington square, New York, is prettily played by all concerned, and the lovers, Gladys Moncrieff and Reginald Roberts, catch the audience with the duet, “Sweetheart, will you Remember?” the charming valse refrain of which recurs throughout. The Gipsy dancers, and the spirited song of the Gipsy (Percy Claridge) give contrast and colour. Mme. Delphine’s Night Club (1855) shows an assembly in the past style of that day with the young people at the mazurka, crystal chandeliers, with sparkling lustres, and the tune, “Jump, Jim Crow,” just over from France, . amusingly in evidence. Claude Van Zandt,, a gallant, had married the now unhappy Ottillie, and the scandal caused by the return from South Africa of the successful Dick, still faithful to his first love, leads to the captivating duet, “The Road to Paradise,” and his subsequent consent to marry Alice Tremaine to avoid further conflict be-, tween Ottillie and her jealously wrathful husband. The coryphees of a ballet brought in by T. P. Barnum (Jack Ralston) relieve the sentimental atmosphere. In 1885 the old home of the Van Zandts in New York is under the hammer of the auctioneer, and Phil Smith convulses the audience with his remark on Landseer’s goats. further low-com-edy relief is amusingly supplied by Florence Young. The curious playgoers here see Mr. Roberts pathetically serious and white-headed in his sixties. Miss Moncrieff “elegantly genteel” as she may look at 61, and Miss Olive Godwin, (Mme. Delphine) even more lucky as an aristocratic old lady conversing with Leslie Holland as he hopes to see himself at 63! Mr. Holland plays confidently the part of a gushing idler who married repeatedly for money. His dance, with Male Baird as the brazen hussy who exclaimed “Oh Gee! I hope he’ll last till I get him home,” is the excuse for a grizzly kind of humour on the part of both artists which excites uproarious laughter. “Maytime” owes something to Arnold Bennett’s scheme in “Milestones,” but differs from it in bringing in the two principals as the girl and boy of a later generation destined to repair in happy union the star-crossed love of their grandparents.