SHAKESPEAREAN SEASON

Evening Star, Issue 20133, 25 March 1929, Page 7

SHAKESPEAREAN SEASON

THE ALLAN WILKIE SEASON To what extent schooklay memories and recollections of this or that play figuring as “ set books ” in examinations, arc responsible for the all too prevalent idea that Shakespeare is first and foremost “educational” and therefore devoid of _ those qualities wo look for in entertainment, is a moot point; but there is no doubt that the idea, has a very wide acceptance, and is responsible for depriving a number of people of a delight they might well enjoy. No one has done more to dispel that misconception than Air Allan Wilkie, who is again bringing his talented company to Dunedin for a season of threo weeks, opening at His Majesty’s Theatre on Saturday, Marcli 30. lie is now in the ninth year of his tour of Australia and New Zealand with a purely Shakespearean repertoire, and in that space ol: time nearly 3,P00,000 persons have witnessed his performances out of the comparatively small population of New Zealand ami the Commonwealth. In the course of that period he has produced a total of twenty-six out of the thirty-seven plays accredited to the great dramatist, and stilt cherishes the ambition that in the fullness of time he will achieve the hitherto unachieved by staging the remainder, great as are the difficulties that a number of them, such as ‘ Troilus and Cressida,’ ‘ Pericles,’ and others present. If after these many years devoted by Air Wilkie to familiarising the public with the masterpieces of the master dramatist, there still persists among any number ol playgoers tho delusion that Shakespearean as dramatic faro is “ highbrow,” no better choice of an opening play could have been made than ‘ The Merry Wives of Windsor,’ that “ most pleasant and excellent conceited Omnedio ” of Sir John Falstaff. The play is rich in great comic characters, full of rollicking and even boisterous humour, and as instinct with laughter as a Charlie Chaplin film. It is perhaps not Shakespeare at his greatest; it is just a piece of nonsense all through, but it is nonsense transmuted by genius, and he would be indeed a sobersides who was not moved to laughter by its broadly-comic situations.