"AS YOU LIKE IT"

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2885, 25 September 1916, Page 8

"AS YOU LIKE IT"

AN EVER-POPULAR COMEDY A comedy by William Shakespeare. Cast:— ■- Jacques Mr. Allan Wilkia The Banished Duke Mr. John Cave Duke Frederick Mr. Fred Patey, Le Beau Mr. David Belbridge Amiens ... Mr. L. Whiteing Oliver Mr. Vivian Edwards Charles Mr. lied' Kehoe Jacques •. Mr. Bentley BusseH Orlando _ Mr. Walter Hunt Adam Mr. P. V. Scully Dennis Mr. Eonald Henley Touohstone ..:.-.......;'Mr. Edward Landor Corin Mr. Honri Dore Silvius Mr; David Bclridge William Mr. Fred Pater First Lord Mr. A. H. Boswell Second Lord Mr. L. Bobson Audrey Miss Valentine Sidney Phoebe Miss Ruth tforreya Celia Miss Elwyn Harvey Eos'alind :..:. Miss F. HunterrWatta . "As You Like It" is in some respects the most popular of all the comedies of William Shakespeare. It appeals directly to every human being who loves a good jest and a good lover. The. great author himself called the play a pastoral, and truly it has the cbarm that belongs to the pastimes of shepherds and shepherdesses in pleasant fields and under shady greenwood trees. But it has the flavour of tho court as well as of tho glades of Arden. Nimbler wits aro at play in its passages than would probably be found in purely pastoral surroundings, at least in the.'days when learning was the preserve of tlioso born to it. The melancholic humour of Jacques, to whom "all tho world's a stage," had .never reached its perfection in rustic solitudes, and Touchstone, most human and- lovable of fools, is o[ the court first and last. Shepherd and shepherdess are to him the meat and drink of his frolicsome appetite, the rough tools on which he sharpens the keen rapier of his wit. But tho' play is a pastoral, after all, for Jacques 'and Touchstone, the one the very foil of tho o.thcr, are themselves but the background for the lovo of Rosalind and Orlando, and that love, declared by Orlando to the very trees of the forest, is sylvan in its simplicity and natural in ite power. The performance of "As Tbu Like It" given in the Grand Opera'Housc on Saturday night showed again that Mr. Allan Wilkie and tho members of his company are worthy of tho task they, havo set -themselves in N the Shakespearean tercentenary year. Tha theatre was filled in ercry part, a tribute to the sterling merit of previous performances, and itis.safe to say that no member of the audience was disappointed. Free" and spontaneous laughter was the answer to the suggestion sometimes made that colonial audiences are impatient of tho Shakespearian tradition. The play was enjoyed heartily by the big gathering, and the players' share of tho credit for that fact must bo distributed widely. Miss Frodiswyde-Hunter-Watts was a delightful Rosalind, natural, sympa. thetic, and intelligent. ' She infused just tho right measure of maidenly weakness into her acting lin the later -sccnos, and was satisfying' throughout. Mr. Walter Hunt's Orlando represented an earnest and straightforward effort that was effective without being free-, from faults. r Miss Elwyn Harvey made an excellent Celia, and Mr. P. V. Scully gave' a well-studied interpretation in tho part of Adam, tho faithful old servitor. Tho Touchstone of Mi. Edward Landor was a particularly good bit of characterisation, with 'the rich humour of the part well displayed, and scarcely a line given less than its value. Mr. Allan Wilkie himself'was a Jacques to bo Temcmbered. The part is always an interesting one, for it illustrates so well 6omo of the methods of tho great playwright. Jacques might bo left out, and a good play would remain; but it would'be a play fallfflc very farshort of "As You Liko It," since, it would lack tho comments of an -immortal wit upon tho creatures of his own creation. Mr. Wilkie went a long way towards realising the best that thero is in the part, and to say that is to give very high praisa Tho other mombers of the cast did iheir work conscientiously and nearly always effectively. ' , - "Ks You Liko It" will be repeated this evening and at a matinee this afternoon. '