A LIVELY COMEDY

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 93, 12 January 1918, Page 9

A LIVELY COMEDY

MARIE TEMPEST IN "A PAIR OF SILK STOCKINGS"

Very many of tbe peoplo who saw "A iW of Silk Stockings" at the Grand Opora House last, night i'clt that Miss Marie Tempest had kept the best to the last. Tho comedy that is being presoiited, for tho first time in Wellington, at a close of a highly successful season, is brisk, bright, and breezy, .with tears to give savour to its laughter, and with just tho spico of scandal that the normal unregenerate person likes. To say that Miss Tempest and her very capablo leading man, Mr. Graham Browne are suited in their parts would bo to do something less than justice to their versatility. They both possess tho art that makes natural tho assumed; their parts fit them because they know how to play, not beeauso the playwright worked to a pattern. But it may bo said that neither Miss Tempest nor Mr. Browno has been seen in Wellington to better advantage than as Molly Thornhill and her recentlydivorced and badly-compromised exhusband, Sam Thornhill. The audience is let into tho sccrefc quito early. Sam had bought furs and other costly trifles for a certain lady .merely in order to mako his wifo jealous. lie and Molly had differed regarding tho clioico ot a motor-ear, and Molly being tho sort of little lady who has her own way, Sam felt "beastly narked," and proceeded to got entangled in clumsy masculine fashion. And then Molly, without pausing for any explanations at all. "just biffed off to her grandmother," as the aggrieved Sam puts it, and set on foot divorco proceedings. So the opening seone_ finds a disconsolato dtvorccd Sam staying at a country house and "fcoling fed up with everything." 110 refuses to take an intelligent interest even in amateur theatricals. Then Molly arrives. She says that her motor-car has broken down hopelessly, that sho cannot possibly go a yard further that night, and that sho must bo fed and put to bed with the least possiblo delay. And sho is crushingly surprised when she notices Sam, imperfectly concealed behind tho piano and too shaken to seizo this opportunity for making the explanations to which his angry ex-wife has so far refused to. listen. There is a burglar in the neighbourhood, and Sam is supplied with an idea by a sympathetic fellow-guest. He will hide, disguised, in his wife's room, and simply force his explanation upon her. Just how this scheme does not work in tho way intended; how Sam finds himself tied up with a pair of silk stockings and locked' in a bathroom; how ho escapes with tho stockings and what sort of explanation he has to offer oil tho following day, when Molly horself is trying to make her scandalised hosts understand how she came to have the assistance of Major Bagnall in the capture of a midnight burglar who' cannot be produced; these incidents and many -others go to tho making of a truly delightful comedy, which runs through its three acts without a flaw or a falter.

Of the work of the individual plaj'ers it is not necessary to say much at this stage of tho season. Miss Tempest was again delightful. Sko was the Molly Thornhill that tho author must have seen in his vision, impulsive, hot-tempered, yot gifted with a sense of humour and a wholesomo sano outlook on life. Her playing was that of a great actress. Mr. Graham Browne could scarcely have been bettered as the blundering and "fed-up" husband. Voice, attitude, mannerisms wero all truo to tho essentially English typo that he was portraying. His humour, in the phrase that Sam would liavo used himself, was simply ripping. Tho other members of the company were all good. Mr. Sidney Stirling was Major Bagnall, and played a straightforward, manly part with distinction.' Miss Gwon Burroughs was thoroughly elfcctivo as Irene Maitland, and Miss Ethol Morrison gave a good character study as Lady Gower. Miss Eileen Robinson, Miss Nancye Stewart, Mr. Leslie Victor, Mr. Roger Barry, and other members of the company had loss important parts. Miss Marie Tempest will close her Wellington season this evening with a final performance of "A Pair of Silk Stockings."