AMUSEMENTS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4434, 5 June 1875, Page 3

AMUSEMENTS.

"A crown's worth of good interpretation.." —SIIAKaI'ERE. It is' scarcely fair to judge anyone by a •single trial, and therefore I am reticent in pronouncing an opinion on the merits, or demerits, of Miss May Howard, having seen her act but once, and that once under most disadvantageous circumstances. For I feel certain that few who were in the Theatre Royal on Saturday night last but will agree that " Oliver Twist," as dramatised by somebody or another, and as acted by Miss Howard and company, was as great a farrago of rubbish as it would be possible to couceivo. The only semblance of the language written, and of the characters described by Dickens, to be found during the night, was in the opening scene of the first act, when Miss Hottie Howard and Mr. Hydes did give me some idea of Mrs. Corney and Mr. Bumble. And here I may turn aside for a moment to notice the wonderful advance in her profession which the young lady just named has evidently made. When, some eighteen months ago, she made her first appearance, naturally in parts of the merest utility, I confess I was not prepared to find her, within so short a time, capable of playing as well as she did on Saturday night, which, I may say, was as well as could be expected from any of those ladies of long experience on the stage who make such parts as that of Mrs. Corney their specialty. This by the way. With the exception I have mentioned, " Oliver Twist" was a performance of that distressing nature, calculated, as are some performances, to make an audience laugh exactly where it should bo solemn, and to make it serious exactly where author and actors are desirous that it should overflow with hilarity. Thus, those portions of " Oliver Twist" which the great master has made so pathetic became absolutely comical by their dramatic rendering. Miss May Howard neither looked like Dickens's Nancy nor spoke as I should have imagined Nancy to have spoken. She said, what she had to say rather like a Yankee Lady Macbeth endeavoring to talk Whitechapel-fashion, than like a young lady of Miss Nancy's breeding and peculiar habit of life would have spoken. In her apostrophe to Oliver as he lay senseless iu the arms of Sykes, Miss Howard asked half a dozen times whether he did not look "kiud of" something or another. This was a New York improvement upon London colloquialisms that was of a piece with the entire performance of the character, and had, as I have said, a tendency to make the laughter coaie in in the wrong place. I have no desire to assert that in many part 3 Miss May Howard may not be a capable and pleasing actress. Of one thing I am, however, wejl assured, she cannot play Charles Dickens' Nancy, or rather, if a feeble pun will be excused, when she attempts to play Nancy she plays the dickens with it. Mr. Howard's Dodger, from the same causes, produced opposite effects to Miss Howard's Nancy. It made me melancholy. There was much about it of Mr. Howard, a great deal of the stage London prig, nothing whatever of the genuine and original Mr. Dawldns. No, not even in the dress and get up, of which the novelist has given so ample a description that not to follow it is to insult the good sense of an audience. As a, well played part, Mr. Burford's Sykes stood out in relief. That he, like others, went as far as possible from the words supplied by Dicken3 was, I suppose, the fault of the impostor, unknown, who dared to hash up Oliver Twist a TAmericaine. But, so far as the adapter and Miss Howard would let him, it was plain that Mr. Burford manfully struggled his best to be like Sykes, and in hi 3 manner looked him completely. Of Mr. Collier as Fagin I cannot write so satisfactorily, unless, indeed, it be in the gaol scene, where he displayed some conception of a most powerfully written chapter. When I mention in reference to the rest of the play that Miss Ashton did her best to succeed in Oliver Twist, that the scenery was altogether inappropriate, and that the prompter was, in places, more prominent than the performers. I think I shall have said enough of the performance of Oliver Twist. I do not think, somehow or another, that things were propitious for Mr. Rainford's benefit. In the first place, the period when a certain active sympathy had arisen for hirn had passed away ; and, in the next, those who were most active at the time mentioned in promising him practical evidence of theirsupport, failed to give him that evidence when the time "came. I will, however, say no more on this head, as ample opportunity for repairing any errors that may have occurred will be afforded. Is it not curious that we should be so frequently assured of the qualifications possessed by Miss May Howard, supposed to recommend her to the public above other ladies, and for which she has to thank her Creator and her dressmaker ? I have had this lady's good looks and good dresses flung at my head, in print and out of print, for some time, as if there were no other actress in the colony who could compare with her in these respects. I have yet to learn that either are essential qualifications for an actress, though I admit that both are most agreeable concomitants to talent. But if they be things' on account of which people should crowd a theatre, why, then, all I can say is, that, in respect of appearance, Miss Colville should obtain audiences that would overflow a house, and, in respect of dre3S, I am assured by competent judges that the 'same lady should be equally successful. But as these are extraneous, though not altogether unimportant matters, I will pass from them to notice that above and beyond such things aa looks and dress, a good comedy, such as "The Hunchback," "The Jealous Wife," or "The Serious Family;" when played by a capable company under Mr. Hoskins, js really worth seeing. At least, in such a case the spectator is not offended by careless getup ; the auditor is not agonised by eccentricities of language, caused by au effort to engraft the language of the actor on that of the author. Wherefore-1 note with pleasure the opening of the Theatre Royal by the Hoskins-Colville company on Monday last, on which night they played " The Hunchback," following this up on the Tuesday by "The Jealous Wife" and " The Serious Family." It is a singular thing that to be interesting a French author must be immoral, or rather must treat of subjects which it has only lately come upon English authors to touch, and must treat them in a manner scarcely as yet " acclimatised" in England. It seems impossible for a Frenchman, or woman either for the matter of that, to paint plain and simple virtue, rncritand worth, without beingunnatural and uninteresting. The result is that in books which do not touch upon immorality at all, the morality is of an asthetic vapid nature that reduces it to folly, and for the same reason in books where morality is introduced as a counterpoise to its opposite quality, that opposite quality gives the only features of interest in consequence of the dullness of the other side. What is true of French books is also true of French plays, and as a result, the main interest in " Temptation" lies in the doubts that encircle the preservation of a woman's honor. Nevertheless, I am not asserting that "Temptation" is an immoral play; far from it. The subject matter is handled in the English version so as not to hurt the susceptibilities of the most susceptible, and this being so, it would be impossible to object to tho introduction of subject matter which is far less serious in its consequences thanit in in "Frou Frou," or "Canaille." I have seen it said in print that "Temptation" is a copy of "Frou Frou," from which sayin" I must take leave to dissent. It is true that both plays deal with a wife's temptation under an unhappy state of married life, caused by neither husband nor wife understanding or appreciating each other. But the characters of husband and wife and the causes of their miauiidertiUndirtg are quite different in each play, whilst the final result is far more pleasing in " Temptation" than it is in "Frou Frou." As to tho manner in which " Frou Frou" was put on the boards and played at the Theatre Royal, I really have not much to say. Being originally written for French actors and

actresses, who make the pourtrayal of ordinary conversation or tho manners of ordinary life a subject of complete study, much of its dialogue, and many of its minor incidents and touches, went for nothing with the ladies and gentlemen of the Theatre Royal, who have been, I presume,so educated in the making of " points" as to quite neglect the art of contriving whilst on the stage, to talk, walk, and act like tho character. supposed to be represented. From this statement, however, I would except Mr. Booth who really seemed to me to realise, more than any one of the company, the fact that the less his acting looked like acting the better it would be. There was, too, a diversity of opinion as to the dress of French gentlemen, and as to the pronunciation of French names, highly flattering from a free and republican point of view, but scarcely so from an artistic one. But by these remarks I am not intending to assert that, on the whole, the play and the acting of the play were not well worth seeing. On the contrary, in many scenes, Mr. and Mrs. Hoskins, by the most legitimate exercise of their art, roused_ the interest of their audience to the highest pitch, and made everyone feel that he or she was witnessing interpretations which nothing but careful study in the dramatic profession, and true capabilities for acting could afford. I hope that " Temptation " has not been finally withdrawn, but that before the end of the present season we may hope to see it repeated. HISTRIOMASTIX.