AMUSEMENTS.

Hokitika Guardian, 28 August 1918, Page 1

AMUSEMENTS.

"PEG O' MV HEART," TO-NIGHT. “ Peg O’ My Heart ” which opens at the Princess Theatre, Hokitika, to-night Wednesday 2Sth, for one night only is generally voted Due of the sweetest plays to-day, and the reason it is so is because, like love’s young dream it is clean and good, and fresh, and wholesome and natural. With Miss Sara Allgood in the role of” Peg,” supported by most of the original Knglish Company brought to Australia by J and N. Tail, playgoers here may look forward to a lavishly staged production this evening. Miss Allgood is an girl with just a taste of the brogue, combined with deliciously soft and frequent laughs, which should help her as Peg. She has been ten years on the stage, and began her dramatic career at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin where she starred in a succession of Irish plays. The leading role in 14 Peg O’ My Heart” was only one ol her many English successes. Supporting her will lie Mr Felix Bland, who plays the part of the foppish Alaric Chichester, while Mr Gerald Henson, a protege of Sir Johnstone Forbes Robertson is appearing in the role ol the lover Jerry. Miss Nan Tasdor will be seen as Mrs Chichester, while the proud and haughty"daughter, Ethel Chichester is portrayed by Miss Mab Gower. Both of these characters are frigid icebergs which Peg with all her natural Irish warmth is unable to melt. However, her shafts of Irish wit, and the pathos of her Irish sadness, gradually thaws the hearts of the household into which she has been thrust to be brought up as a lady, and at the end of the play love, comes to Peg, and she and Jerry at last understand the lull meaning of Tom Moore’s delightful poem, “Oh there’s nothing half so sweet in life as love’s young dream..” It is an idyll all through, told in delightfully clean dialogue. Other parts arc being portrayed by Mr Lionel Walsh, in the role of Christopher Brent, Mr Wilton Power, as the family lawyer “ Hawkes,” Mr George Chalmers as the pompous butler “Jarvis,” and Miss Madge Surtees- in the role ot the maid “ Bennett.” The scenery and lighting effects will be on the same scale ot magnificence as characterised the Metropolitan productions, the lighting playing a most important part in the working out of the plot. The “ Peg o’ My Heart ” orchestra will render selections, and altogether a wonderful evening’s enjoyment is promised. The box plan is at Mrs Browne’s, next to theatre. This clever company should have a wonderful Irish reception here to-night.

POLLARD’S PtCTURES, “THE WOMAN BENEATH.” Pollard’s present at tile Princess Theatre oil Thursday evening the favourite screen performer—-Ethel Clayton in a World Film caustic picturisation of American High Society ns personified on the New York “Upper Four Hundred.” “The Woman Beneath”, is a clever story told- of a young society girl who could not understand her husband. He was a man who had made, millions by hard work and now cordially received in High Society, but could not understand the smart-set way of looking upon marriage—especially when he saw bis wife’s foolish flirtations, imperilling her happiness. The Gth., Chapter of “A Lass of the hiimberland” to he screened, is a highly sensational one which includes a trainwreck and startling fire scene.