Plays for New Zealand

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 85, 4 January 1935, Page 5

Plays for New Zealand

]\fISS JOCELYN HOWARD.- the Australian girl who will be coming to New Zealand with the J. C. Williamson company; headed by George Thiffiwell, playing “Ten Minute Alibi’’ and “The Wind and the Rain,” is a very clever

young woman, who has both stage and screen experience to help her become • one of Australia’s best-known actresses. She appeared in “The Squatter’s Daughter” and “The Silence of Dean Maitland,” and acted with great charm and simplicity. She has the chief feminine interest in “The Wind and the Rain,” and Dr. Merton Hodge, author of the play, allows the heroine splendid opportunities for the romance all women like to see presented on the stage. Mr. Thirlwell, the handsome male lead, is an Englishman who has had remarkable experience on the Lon■x don and American stage, playing with such noted people as Matheson Lang and John D. O’Hara. He is a most versatile artist, and a very likeable personality. He has a strenuous role both in “Ten Minutes Alibi” and “The Wind and the Rain,” as both demand his almost continual presence on the stage. He brings rare restraint to the -role of Colin Derwent, in the former, and, as Charles Tritton in the Hodge play, is typical of any normal young man studying in Edinburg, who finds that women play an important part, despite the fiancee he has left in Chelsea. In the “Alibi” play, the audience sees a murder committed twice, the first timeas a dream, and then translated, with modifications, into fact. The murderer is also the hero, contrary to the usual , order of plots, and be steals an important ten minutes by an ingenious rearrangement of the clock hands. Arundel Nixon, Frank Bradley, Patricia Minchin, Guy Hastings, Thelma Scott, Ronald Atbolwood, Nan Taylor, Tommy Jay, Richard Fair, Ronald Roberts, and others are in the company that Messrs. Williamson are sending from Australia to commence a Dominion tour at Wellington Grand Opera House on January 19. Don Juan “ r pHE PRIVATE LIFE OF DON "*■ JUAN,” the London film production shortly to be released by United Artists, has a story which for delightful satire has never been surpassed on the screen. At the ’ peak of his career Don Juan is being impersonated by several young .men who find ’ that his name assists their conquests. One of them is killed in a duel, and the news flies round Seville that the famous lover is dead. Actually Don Juan is tiring of his affairs and finding the urge to climb balconies less pressing than the urge to sleep. So he allows the report of his death to go undenied. Months later lie tries to recapture his ascendancy, but meets a pathetic fate. He has not altered in the slightest, but nobody will believe it is,Don Juan, so eventually, weary of rebufts, he goes home to his longneglected wife and becomes belatedly domesticated. Douglas Fairbanks appears as Don Juan, while an amazing supporting cast includes Merle Oberon, Benita Hume, Joan Gardner and Diana Napier. ' Popular Novel “ r £HE Fountain,” by Charles Morgan, probably the most highly-praised novel of 1932, is one of the most powerful love stories ever written, and one in which the eternal triangle is treated in a big and noble way. An engrossing story, distinguished writing, big emotional scenes, all unforgetably sympathetic, made this novel a hit, and necessitated the printing of more than 200,000 copies before the publication of the reprint editions was begun. The verdict of the literary world can be summarised in the words of Harry , Hansen, book critic of the N.Y. World Telegram: “A fine love story, lived by two persons who are both highly intuitive and deeply intelligent, who can pause and analyse their own inner compulsions even while they taste the ecstasy of earthly love.” “The Fountain,” as a story, comes to the screen with an unusual prestige impelling it ! to triumph. The cast includes Ann Harding, Brian Aherne, Paul Lukas and Jean Hersholt. “Barretts of Wimpole Street” t r DHE same romantic team which won X such ovations in “Smilin’ Through” - —Norma Shearer and Fredrlc March —are together in the new Metro-Gold-wyn-Mayer feature, “The Barretts of Wimpole Street,” shortly to be seen here. The poetic love story of the new film is reminiscent of “ Smilin’ Through,” the star’s greatest hit, in its main theme and sentimental appeal. Like the other, it is a colourful costume picture, set in a great and romantic age. With old-fashionedness the vogue in to-day's films, “The Barretts of Wimpole Street” is in the centre of fashion. Set in 1845, the poetic story of the love of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning is unfolded against a beautiful, mellowed drop of gentler times and dressed in the curls and crinolines which go arm in arm with romance.