MISS BEAUDET'S BENEFIT.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3083, 14 May 1881, Page 3

MISS BEAUDET'S BENEFIT.

NAHCISSE,

The representation of this play, new to the people of Napier, was a genuine success. Expectation had been raised to a considerable height, and we feel sure that entire satisfaction was the result. In the character of the changeful, embittered, and cynical beggar philosopher, Herr Bandmann had ample scope for his undoubted power of expressing fierce emotion. In his interviews with Doris, where he recalls the happiness of his former life, and the cause of his change, the strong yearning for his early love was splendidly brought out; the story of his early life, as told to Doris, was the most intensily pathetic piece of acting we have witnessed for a long time. In the soene where the play to be performed before the King is rehersed there was an opportunity of giving expression to strong emotion, and Herr Bandmann took full advantage of it. The Doris of Miss Beaudet oonflrmed our opinion that Miss Beaudet is a very charming actress. Where Doris discovers that the woman she is plotting to ruin is the wife of the man she has learned to love her intense pleadings that he should be spared the agony of this discovery showed Miss Beaudet's power in a wonderful degree. The whole play was one of the most enjoyable that has been witnessed in Napier. In " Much Ado about Nothing," which followed, the principal characters were admirably done. The Beatrice of Miss Beaudet was charming, and the ease and piquancy with which she brought out the different phases of Beatrice's character delighted the audience and added another to Miss Beaudet's triumphs. It is in comedy of this kind that Miss Beaudet will win her laurels for the present. She yet lacks the presence and experience for many of the heavier characters in Shakespeare, but in characters like Beatrice it is rarely we have seen her equal. Herr Bandmann's Benedict was a careful and expressive performance, and only served to show the wonderful versatility of this talented actor. To-night Richard the Third will be performed.