“OH! OH! DELPHINE.”

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1516, 15 May 1919, Page 34

“OH! OH! DELPHINE.”

A distinct innovation is promised on Thursday night in the new musical play “Oh! Oh! Delphine.” It comes with the most flattering credentials. In London especially it enjoyed a prolonged run at the Shaftesbury Theatre under the direction of that doyen of musical comedy producers Robert Courtneidge. The play will be presented here with all the lavishness and attention to detail that is customary with a J. C. Williamson production. The plot is of a particularly racy and sparkling nature. The story is from the French of Messrs. George Berr and Marcel Guillemaud, founded on the play of “La Villa Primrose,” a very celebrated Palais Royale comedy. The book is by C. M. S. McLennan, and the music is chiefly from the pen of that pastmaster of tuneful lyrics Ivan Caryll. As to the story, Mlle. Delphine arrives by way of Paris. She has her connubial home in the French capital, and a most attractive young husband who is by way of being an artist. The juvenile party is something of a

modern Don Juan, and so gathers round him a group of charming young ladies, whose beauty in the aggregate is to supply him with the perfect form of “Venus Rising From the Sea.” Delphine divorces him. Victor Jolibeau is exchanged for Alphonse Bouchette, divorced from the piquante Simone. The illusory ideal makes way for the positive prosaic. Then the irony of fate ordains that they shall meet, and absence has spread the cloak of forgetfulness over the past. Worse still, wealthy Uncle Noel appears, and the divorced couple have to superficially resume their matrimonial relationship, while Bouchette, for reasons quite obvious to those skilled in the unravelling of musical comedy plots, gives out that he is the husband of a sylph-like lady who carries about expensive Persian rugs on her shoulders, and whose knowledge of the English language consists of a liberal use of the word “carpets.” The opera is of the supersprightly order, with a repletion of beautiful ballets and ensembles.

“KATINKA.” That queen of comic operas, “Katinka,” will be presented on Monday next and three following nights. Writes a leading Sydney critic of this melodious piece: “In the course of their managerial career, J. C. Williamson, Ltd., have given the public many sumptuous and exquisite scenes, but for sheer picturesqueness they have done nothing so scenically beautiful as the three acts of ‘Katinka.’ ‘The Merry Widow’ and ‘Belle of New York’ enjoyed phenomenal successes, but I think ‘Katinka’ is going to perform to a more triumphant tune. In every way it is stronger in that valuable dramatic element —contrast. The characterisation is more firmly marked, and the individuality of each artist is given more play. Everyone stands out clear and each character remains a fixed entity in the mind.” In the play” there are two delightfully comic characters, Knopf (Mr. Leslie Holland) and Thaddeus Hopper (Mr. Phil. Smith; a good singing and acting part for Mr. Reginald Roberts, and a fine old man study for John Forde and an attractive singing role for Miss Olive Godwin. Miss Florence Young is most happily placed as the bewitching Mrs. Hopper, and as the beautiful Katinka Miss Gladys Moncrieff has especially fine singing and acting opportunities. Add a number of beautiful novel dances by Miss Maie Baird and Mr. Robert McKinnon, and sparkling ballets, a more than ordinary lavish scenic display, a quantity of ravishingly chic costumes, and a performance of a deal more than the ordinary merit may be anticipated. The scenery, costumes and other artistic impedimenta necessary to the play are all new. The production of “Katinka” should prove of extraordinary interest to local playgoers, in view of the fact that it is a production of the opera, complete in every detail, lock, stock and barrel, straight from His Majesty’s Theatre, Sydney.