“SWITZERLAND”

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 191, 9 May 1940, Page 14

“SWITZERLAND”

Return Wellington Season Soon

That ice show and ice ballet of spectacle and beauty, J. C. Williamson’s “Switzerland,” will begin a return Wellington season in the New Opera House on Saturday afternoon. Though the season will be brief, the floor of the stalls will again be raised so that patrons in this part of the theatre will be able (o have a clear view of the ice and the skaters. Since late on Monday night, the company’s engineers, electricians, and other technicias have been working in the theatre, preparing the rink so that it will be ready for testing tomorrow. Megan Taylor, champion ice skater of the world, gives some indication of why she is the champion in a series of figures on the ice. Her father, Phil Taylor, is' a daring and skilful trick skater. He glides, slides, and swerves, even jumps barrels; lie attaches, his skates to stilts, put his hand behind his back, and is off round the rink with an abandon that is enviable —even if he were not on the stilts. Other artists whose memory will linger are Elsie Heathcote, who is the very epitome of grace in her solo dances and when she is Phil Taylor’s partner in a dainty gavotte, the MacKinnon Sisters, who attain a high standard of excellence in “Grace” and “Batons,” Rita Bramley. Dina Grafton, and Ronald Priestly. To single out individual girls from the ballet would be to defeat the spirit of the ballet, but sufficient is their rhythm and beauty to make them, as a unit, memorable also. Were it not, for Eddie Marcei, the compere of the entire show, a few vaudeville acts, and a song or two on the iee. “Switzerland” would he an allsilent show—nearly, for the click of the blades gives finish to the movements performed. Eddie Marcil is a fascinating compere-corned tan, and, winning his audience almost as* soon as he appears, is highly amusing throughout.