A VIVID COMEDY

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 98, 19 January 1921, Page 10

A VIVID COMEDY

“IRENE” AT THE GRAND OPERA HOUSE “Irene,” a musical comedy in two acts, by James Montgomery. Cast: Donald Marshall Robert Jewett Robert Harrison Thomas Paunceforte <l. P. Bowden Henry Gordon Lawrence Hadley Rawdon Blandford Clarkson Milton P v ‘‘cn Irene O’Dare Dorothy South Helen Gheston Peggy Maloney Jane Gilmour Marion Earle Mre. Marshall Alice Bentley Eleanor Worth Velma Hinkle Mrs. O’Dare Georgia Harvey Mrs. Cheston Grayce V. Connell Madame Lucy Chester Clute Very many of the musical comedies of recent years have appeared to have been cast in a commpn mould, frills, and fancies being applied Inter according to the ability nnd the taste of the producers. “Irene,” which was introduced to a Wellington, audience at the Grand Opera House last night by Messrs. J. and N. Tait’s company, does not come from the mould at all. In fact, one is tempted to dispute its right to be called n musical comedy, since it is so very nearly a clever play. If the author had chosen to elaborate liis work a trifle and pay a little more attention to the sketching of his supporting characters, he might have dispensed with the music altogether and presented delighted, audiences with a satire in two acts, pillorying society for its failure to distinguish between the inner woman and the outer raiment. But there is no need to quarrel wit ’lithe form in which the story of Irene O’Dare has been told, since the mixture of pathos and patter, sentiment and song, dress and drama “gets there very effectively indeed. The story is quite simple. Irene is a girl of the slums, with a keen-tongued Irish mother to guard her. She has wit and charm, but she works behind a counter in. a shop, and because she dresses within her slender means she is a nobody. Her clothes and her associations prevent her meeting “nice” people on terms of equality, bne encounters, in the way of business, Donald Marshall, a wealthy young man, who happens to be looking for a method of helping “Madame Lucy,” a queer little man who is a great dressmaker but has not managed to acquaint high society with the fact. Donald presently wants to help Irene as well as “Madame Lucy,' and ho conceives the idea of arranging with the dressmaker that the girl and two of her companions, similarly gifted m f<me figure and lacking in fortune, shall be made the best dressed women in -he city. So the slum girls, ceasing to be mere dustv daisies by the wayside, blossom into costly hot-house flowers, and high society, .assessing them by their clothes, courts them eagerly. IVhac happens to Donald does not need to be explained. The story is made vivid by the alternation of scenes in the homes of the wealthy and in the slums, where Irene and her companions, who really are decent, girls with homes to help maintain, have to depart very far from the truth in their explanations to suspicious ami. bewildered parents. The burden of the comedy rests on iho pretty and capable shoulders of Miss Dorothy South, who has the name part. Miss South is a versatile and sympathetic actress. She seemed equally at home in the opening scene, where she told her pathetic little story with a Bowery accent, and in the gayer moments when she had become a groat lady and was wearing perfectly ravishing frocks. She made very effective the contrasts that belonged to her part. Her songs were not many, but they were notable, particularly the quaint “Alice Blue Gown.” The two Bowery girls who shared with Irone the social benefits to lie derived from costly frills and furbelows were represented by Miss Marion Earle and Miss Peggy Maloney. Those two young ladies did their work uncommonly well. Their “Talk of the Town,” in the first act, when they appeared- as the rough and raw material for the dressmaker’s art, was one of the big successes of the evening, and they were equally good later in “VWre Getting Away With It” and “The Last Part of Every Party.” They wore in themselves a striking contrast in colouring, and they wore, with Miss South, some of the wonderful frocks that are a feature of the comedy. Air. Chester Clute, as the man modiste, presented an excellent character sketch in comic vein, and was prominent in several of the concerted numbers. Mr. Robert Jowett was reasonably convincing as Donald Marshall, and Miss Georgia Harvey made a. vigorous All's. O'Dare. The staging and mounting of the play were in accordance with the high standard that Messrs. J. and N. Tait have set themselves, and the principals had the support of a large and tuneful chorus, male and female, which helped to produce some striking stage effects. “Irene” is to be repeated each night this week.