SHAKESPEARE CLUB

Evening Star, Issue 24283, 26 August 1942, Page 6

SHAKESPEARE CLUB

1 MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR'

‘ The Merry Wives of Windsor,’ which was tho play selected for reading lash night by the Dunedin Shakespeare Club, is sheer comedy based upon the euckoldish adventures of the portly Sir John Falstaff with tile two merry wives of Windsor residents, and the wives’ devices for fooling him, and it took the big east some little time to work up to the point of excited fun—attainment of which is necessary to the success of any performance of the play. On the whole, however, the reading was a highly satisfactory one, and was thoroughly enjoyed by an audience which filled the greater part of the Town Hall Concert Chamber.

»Sir John Fnlstaff is one of Shakespeare’s best-known and most popular characters, and this part was read last night by Mr H. W. Hunter. Mr Hunter scores most of his successes in more serious, more thoughtful parts, and his interpretation in the earlier scenes of the bashful philanderer was scarcely light enough. Later, however, when the somewhat deflated cuckold tells Ford (masquerading as Martin Brook) of tho indignity he had suffered in being carried off m a basket of soiled clothes, and m the scenes in which Mistress Ford and Mistress Page plot Sir John’s discomfiture, Mr Hunter was excellent. Miss V. Jefferson and Miss H. Smith, who read the lines of theso two merry wives, did so very successfully, being responsible for much of the sparkle which enlivened the second part of the reading. Of tho two husbands, Mr N. McKinlay (Ford) read very well—very consistently, and was one of those who earned special mention, Mr L. Jones (Page) being just a little lacking in colour. Mr C. J. L. White, whose reappearance in tho east after a lapse of several years was very welcome, read Shallow, tho emphatically pretentious country justice, and despite the fact that the emphasis was on occasions rather too strongly imparted, his reading was decidedly pleasing. This inclination to emphasise words and passages by shouting them was noticeable with more than one male member of tho cast. In a reading particularly, it is, surely, an elocutionary fault. The part of Dr Cains, the excitable Frenchman, was allotted to Mr A. G. Ellis, who did more than read it; lie acted it, and the broken English accent was well managed and maintained. Mr A. B. Graham, as Sir Hugh Evans, the Welsh parson, ignored the accent set down in the text, but his interpretation of tho part was nevertheless quite satisfying. Mr C. D. Banks doubled the parts of Fenton (the gentleman who captures sweet Anne Pago) and Nyon (a sharper), and was distinctly more successful as tho former. The lines of his fellow-sharper, Pistol, were read by Mr R. H. Simpson in his customary smooth and natural style. Mistress Quickly, whose lines are numerous and often pointed, was interpreted very effectively by Mrs J. T. Thomson. Other parts were read by Mr L. G. Geering (the cheery, host of the Garter Inn), Mr J. S. P. Cumberbeach (Slender, a very sly cousin to Shallow), Miss S. Selien (Anne Page), Miss F. Townsend (Simple), and Mrs D. Herbert (Rugby and Robin). Miss L. Hale made an efficient chorus.

During the interval Mr John Devereux sang 1 Nelson’s Gone a-Sailing ’ (Lohr) and ‘ Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes,’ Miss Rubina Jenkins being the accompanist.