ALEXANDER WATSON

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 277, 17 August 1921, Page 8

ALEXANDER WATSON

SOME GOOD SHAKESPEAREAN SCENES. Such is the lure and talent of Alexander Watson that he always appears to be at his best in the selections he is actually reciting. -At one time you judge him to be at his best in Dickens, at others iu Kipling, and last evening he seemed to bo at the apex of his form in Shakespeare. He selected from the work of the Bard tho charming Forest of Arden scene, in which the Banished Duke and his train and the melancholy Jacques figure. As is well known, the famous “Seven Ages’’ speech is spoken by Jacques in this scone, and as vitalised by Mr. Watson it was a graphic review of man’s short span of life. Then, again, in the gravedigger’s scene in the last act of "Hamlet,” .the reciter lent humour, pathos, and passion to the undying lines of the Master. His assumption of the character of the philosophising old gravedigger ,showed that the platform has robbed the stage of a fine character actor. Among the miscellaneous pieces recited were "The Kelpie, of Corrievreckan” (Mackay), “Thq Power of Music” (Conch), "The Courtin’ ” (Russell Lowell), "Tmpm”. (a Scotch word, not in the dictionaries, which may mean a great deal according to circumstances), and “Conn Goes Hunting” (a comic excerpt from Dion Boucicault’s “Conn tho Shaugrauu”). This evening Mr. Watson will present a new Kipling programme, which 'will include "The Ballad of the Clampherdown,” “If,” "Lichtenburg,” the second part of "Mv Lord the Elephant.” "Gunga Din,” and "The Glory of the Garden.”