MURIEL STARR’S FAREWELL.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1553, 29 January 1920, Page 36

MURIEL STARR’S FAREWELL.

THREE IMPORTANT PLAYS. The second production will be anassociation with so popular a leading man as Mr. Frank Harvey, and supported by a first-class dramatic company, under the direction of J. C. Williamson, Ltd., will doubtless be hailed with distinct pleasure. Of all the high-class emotional actresses that have visited us for a decade no more popular or. talented artist has been seen than Miss Muriel Starr. She will appear in Auckland for an eleven nights’ season, commencing Saturday, February 7, with three new plays which come to this city with exceptional reputations, viz., “The Silent- Witness,” “Common Clay,” and “Three Faces East.” The former, which will be the ,opening piece, shows Miss Starr in one of her greatest impersonations, that of Helen Hastings, the unhappy mother of an unfortunate son —a character of a most exacting nature, which runs the entire gamut of the emotions during its exposition. The author of “The Silent Witness” is Otto Haurbach, who wrote “Katinka,” the musical comedy which achieved much popularity in the Dominion some time back. It is said to be full of mystery and thrill, with a strong dramatic story of sustained interest, and it also possesses the valuable quality of “suspense.” “COMMON CLAY.” The second priduction will be another successful drama, “Common Clay.” The story deals with the jmoral responsibility of men to women and girls of lower station whom they betray. The unfortunate female in “Common Clay” is Ellen Neal, who, after a career of shame, makes a genuine effort to reform, by accepting domestic service in a

gentleman’s household, only to encounter therein one who had been chiefly responsible for the mode of life she had previously led, and to be still further pestered and eventually betrayed by the gentleman’s son. Her demand that something should be done for hei’ child leads the father to consult his lawyer, who, in a discussion on morals generally, confesses to an indiscretion in his youth similar to that of his client’s son, and in the end it transpires that Ellen Neal is none other than the daughter of this very lawyer. “THREE FACES EAST.” The third and final production of the season will be the sensational and thrilling spy play “Three Faces East,” a drama showing Germany’s subtle methods of gaining information before and after the war. The plans for the eleven nights’ season will open at Wildman and Arey’s on Thursday, February 5.