Walter Bentley.

Feilding Star, Volume XVI, Issue 143, 13 December 1894, Page 2

Walter Bentley.

Mr Walter Bentley's conception of tho character of Wilfred Denver has evidently been carefully thought out, in the first scene he represents tho man weak > and irresolute drinking to prevent himself from thinking. He is ashamed of the mad folly which has brought ruin to himself and his wife, but he lacks the resolution to repent and amend. Mr Bentley emphasises this mood by exhibiting it moro prominently than his predecessors iv tho part of Denver's intoxication. He had just reached that stage when, if left alone, ho would bave fallen into a drunken sleep when his jealousy is aroused by the return of Geffory Ware, and mad with rage at his ; own humiliation, as much as with drink he rushes off vowing he will shoot him. The sceue in Ware's room is a masterly piece of actiug. Roused from the insensibility of chloroforming he is no longer drunk but dazed— he has forgotton his rage against Ware, he is friendly with 1 him and when he discovers him lying on the floor tries to raise him in a friendly ; way — then comes tho frenzy of horror on discovering that Ware has been killed, shown as mrich by facial expression as 1 by words and action. In fact the dream speech in the fourth act may be singled out as such an admirable elocutionary effort, that if Mr Bentley did nothing elso ho would bo remembered by this alone. The seats are booking rapidly at W. Carthew's, therefore we anticipate a bumper house.