ENTERTAINMENTS.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 28 July 1910, Page 4

ENTERTAINMENTS.

PHIL. WALSH AND CO. AT LEVIN. AN ENJOYABLE PERFORMANCE Phil. Walsh and his dramatic, co. began a two nights season at the Town Hall, Levin, last evening. The company is cluc to play at Otaki to-night, but it will return here on Friday, and on the same evening it will present, in the Town Hall, a stirring and pathetic drama entitled "The Drunkard's Daughter." If the company is favoured according to its merits there will be not one vacant seat in the hall when the curtain goes up. This is high praise; but it is quite desenved 1 , for Mr Walsh is an artist of exceptional ability. The play presented last night was entitled "The American Tramp." It described the Bohemian life led by an American tramp or hobo—a. man with a past 'who had gone to Sing Sing prison for a brother's crime, had made his escape from the prison. and whose secret was know-n.to a villian who made use of that Ijnowledge to compel the tramp to aid and abet the villain's machinations against the peace and happiness of a young and innocent girl, who proved, eventually, to be really the tramp's daughter. The plot that was unfolded gave ample opportunities for the company to display the all-round excellence of its acting. Mr Walsh, in the role of Hobo, sibowed a pleasing versatility. His moods ranged "from grave to gay; from' lively to severe." and he was seen in each scene "as to the manner born." In the pathetic parts lie. never overdid his situations, and the saturnine quality that lie imported to the grimly liumoious interludes that he was concerned in were of a peculiarly appropriate nature for a world-buffeted hobo such as the author has drawn. Miss Eva Marius Paigne, in the character of Frances Lee, the persecuted heroine, ably seconded the endeavours of Mr Walsh, and they were both helped towards displaying the best that they were capable of doing by the cool, resourceful 'demeanour of Mr Stuart Meßae. who enacted the part of James Blackburn. T.he persecutor of the heroine The remaining parts in the drama were capably filled by Miss Vin - tage and Messrs P. C. Mitch -11. Donald Logan, and George Gardner

Mr Walsh's "curtain speeches." an American novelty which r.e h.;s introduced wherever he has gone, greatly tickled the fancy of the audience.