THEATRE ROYAL.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2607, 15 August 1882, Page 3

THEATRE ROYAL.

Mr Paul Merritt's piece “ New Babylon” was placed on the boards for the first time in Christchurch last night. We would strongly advise those who propose going to see it to study the _ synopsis of the play already given in our columns, we defy any man to make head or tail of it without doing so. It is one of the most curiously constructed pieces that has yet seen light in this city. The stage is almost always crowded with dramatis persona, but what their little game may happen to be is generally wrapt up in the profoundest mystery. Miss Jenny Watt-Tanner, for instance, takes a duplicate role, but it is only just on the fall of the green curtain that one recognizes that the two women supposed to le pourtrayed are indeed two women, and not one and the same. Then the American detective performs the most serious actions in a manner which baffles detection on the part of the audience. He is such a very secret parly that the most important transactions aro done by him in a manner which deceives the most knowing. People are introduced who have no apparent connection with the plot, end spring from nowhere only to vanish into space, r J ho whole piece, indeed, is so complicated and crowded, that the human reason reels before the task allotted to it. When we have said thus much, however, we have said the worst of the piece. The tableaux are exceedingly well put on the stage, and are most effective, while the rapidity of the changes is the same as was the case in the previous piece given to 08 by the Bland-Holt Company. The

saloon in the Atlantic steamer, the horse sale at TattersalTs, the Goodwood racecourse, the Thames Embankment, the Seven Dials, all were excellently given and brought down the house at frequent intervals. As a spectacle alone, the play is well worth seeing. With regard to the acting we have not much to say, simply because much is not required from the actors. Mr Bland Holt gave the part of Flotsam, the American detective, with great power and with the necessary amount of dry humor. John Lamb, Esq., of Sheepshanks House, Dorset, was exceedingly funny j and Mr Dongles, as Ramirez, made a sufficiently villainous villain. Miss Watt • Tanner, Mis* Lina Edwin, Mr Kennedy, and Mr Holloway all did their respective parts with ability. Against the part of Aunt Crazy (an outcast) wo must raise a decided protest. The part is, to say the least of It, a loathsome one, and, acted as it was to life, it was made all the more disagreeable. It seems to us that it might just as well be omitted, and we feel confident the audience would be exceedingly glad if it were. The piece will be repeated this evening