“THE PILGRIM’S PROGRESS" DRAMATISED.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1805, 4 December 1879, Page 2

“THE PILGRIM’S PROGRESS" DRAMATISED.

The following account of the Rev. George Macdonald's dramatic version of “ The Pilgrim's Progress ” has been published! With the aid of his wife, his numerous children, and a few personal friends, he is now exhibiting in the principal cities of England a grand spectacular entertainment in the shape of a dramatised version of “ The Pilgrim's Progress.” The dramatis personcs are all persons of the utmost orthodoxy, and the cast is chiefly as follows :—Christian (with real pack), Mr Macdonald ; Christiana (with song), Mrs Macdonald; Apollyon (with songs), by an eminent and pinna member of the Scottish Bar ; Greatbeart (with clog dance), Deacon MtPhail j and Giant Despair (7ft Sin), by a converted giant from' a well-known circus. The piece is mounted with great attention to realism. The “ Slough of Despond ” is a careful reproduction of a New York street as seen by Mr Macdonald in his recent visit to America ; “Vanity Fair” is a life-like picture of a Loudon charity fair ; and Giant Despair’s Castle, with real dungeons, where the jailors torture the wretched prisoners by reading to them Mr Macdonald’s novels,is as picturesque and effective as anything in “ The Black Crook.” Perhaps the most popular scene in the whole play is that in which Christiana’s two boys—Masters Donald and Feargus Macdonald—undergo a visitation of genuine colic in consequence of over-indulgence in real grapes, The grapes are from a vine in Mr Macdonald’s own backyard, and the agonies they inflict on the youthful stomach, nightly bring down the house. With the exception of one occasion, when the stage carpenter mixed the “ Slough, of Despond ” too stiff, so that Christian stuck in it and had to be pulled out, with the loss of his boots, by Apollyon and Greatbeart, the play has run with great smoothness.