OPERA-DOROTHY.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 21 October 1901, Page 3

OPERA-DOROTHY.

Act I. Tfce eemedy Opera Dorothy arranged by Cellisr has been performed by several of the largo amateur operatic societies in New Zealand, and met with great success and appreciation wherever staged. The opening scene takes p'aco in the hop gardens surrounding John Tuppit’s—Mr J. Tieriso—inn. The picking is nearly over and the peasants are looking forward to the feasling and jollity with which their labours end. Dorothy Bantam Miss Mable Ea sir.—and Lydia Hawthorne —Miss Cecil Yarrall —Uughcr and nicca of Squire Bantam —Mr W. Cocks—masquerading as peasants, arrive on the scene in time to find that Phyllis —Miss Jessie Mathieson—has rashly promised to marry Tom Struct—Mr R. Williams—the village yokel, and that no warning of theirs will induce her to alter her mind. This is not what they like as Dorothy and Lydia not only preach that woman should remain free from the fetters of matrimony, but they practice what they preach, and have evvorn to remain single. As luck will have it Geoffrey Wilder— Mr M. North—Squire Bantam’s nephew and heir, and whom ho hopes to marry to Dorothy—on this very day, with the bailiffs at his heels on his way to his Uncle’s house, compelled by the presure of his debte to cry “peccavi,” arrives from town with his friend Captain Harry Sherwood—Mr J. P. Staples—closely followed by the Sheriff’s Officer, Lurcher— Mr F. Pegler. Wilder and Sherwood are at once smitten with the supposed Dorcas and Abigail and Wilder declares that he would rather die than marry Dorothy. Lurcher, who has arrived, would not listen to a scheme propounded by Wilder for obtaining money from his Uncle, it it were not for the fact that he has aroused the indignation of the villagers by serving a writ on an old woman. Wilder saves him from a ducking, and in return ho promises to help in his scheme. Mean time the attractions of her cousin have had a considerable effect on Dorothy; and Lydia, since she has seen Sherwood, is by no means so certain about perpetual spinisterhood. To test the value of the earnest protestations of their adorers the girls each give their ring and extract a promise from the gentlemen never to part with them.