THEATRE ROYAL.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4591, 7 December 1875, Page 2

THEATRE ROYAL.

The “Shaughraun” was produced at this theatre last night to a crowded house, and was received from first to last with the utmost favor and applause. This it deserved, since though in one or two parts the acting was not all that could be desired, in all the leading ones and most of the others it was very far above the ordinary, more especially in the case of Mr. Wheatleigh, who made his first appearance in Wellington, and played the honest Irish good-for-nothing Conn in a natural manner, totally different from the wretched burlesque which the stage Irishman too frequently presents. The story of the play runs os follows ; “Robert Ffolliott, an Irish gentleman, has been banished for being a Fenian, and has left his sister and his affianced wife to the oaro of his old friend, Mr. Kinchela, in whose faithfulness he has the most implicit confidence. Of course, this latter turns out to be misplaced. Kinchela is in love with the promised wife of his banished friend, and uses his utmost exertions to get her into his power. Whilst the brother is expiating his crime abroad, he oppresses the sister and betrothed of Robert, causes them to feel the bitterness of want, and at length (hives them to the extremity of having to live on what is provided for them by the poacher - , smuggler, sncl fiddler of the neighbourhood—a half-wild tattermedalion and vagabond named Conn. Pity tor their condition induces Father Dolan, the parish priest, to take them into his house, and during the time they are enjoying his scanty hospitality, Robert Ffolliott, who has escaped out of penal servitude, breaks suddenly in upon them, and causes first hysterics and then congratulations. In the very midst of the weeping and the laughing the house is surrounded by English soldiers, and Conn and Father Dolan have just time to thrust Robert into an old clockcase, when Captain Molineux, at the head of his detachment, enters with a warrant for the apprehension of the escaped political offender. To screen the priest from trouble, Robert gives himself up, and is straightway carried off and incarcerated in a dungeon of the Gate Tower. At this point, the most thrilling incidents of the play begin, but they are too numerous and follow each other with much too startling rapidity to be described in detail. Kinchela, the villain, in top boots, finds out that a free pardon has been granted to the Fenians, and that Ffolhott will in consequence be released and be made acquainted with his villainy. He determines, therefore, to get him out of the way by murdering him. With the view of effecting this object, he visits the prison, and induces Robert to escape by digging a hole with a chisel in the solid wafi of masonry. Meanwhile he had arranged with certain bad accomplices of the baser sort to station themselves outside and shoot Ffolliott whilst he is in the act of escaping, for which honorable act they will receive the reward, and not the punishment of the Government. But, of course, Kinchela proposes and Mr. Boucicault disposes. Robert is aided in the nick of time by _ the tatterdemalion good genius of the piece, Conn, and both escape from those lying in wait for their blood, much to the rage and disappointment of Kinchela. This prison scone

is one of the sensations of the drama. First, we have the interior of the tower, with Ffolliott climbing hand over hand and foot up the wall to get out of the goodly-sized hole he has made in the sturdy masonry. He manages this considerable feat so easily that one is driven to the conclusion that the master mason who erected the stronghold must have built into the wall a series of graduated steps in order to provide for Mr. Boucioault’s contingency. Be that as it may, Robert gets out of the hole, and then the interior of the prison changes by cleverly managed stage machinery to the exterior. The cell vanishes, and we have the towers, ramparts, and high walls of the castle, clothed with ivy from summit to base, revealed in the mellow rays of the moon, with Robert and Conn coming down the beetling face of the masonry in the same mysteriously prehensile manner as they went up, their coats having been cast off in order that the sleepyeyed warders might note their presence by the gratifying whiteness of their shirt sleeves. Conn thereupon takes the cloak of his master, and leads Kinchela and his minions a wild-goose chase after himself among the caves and rocks of the sea shore. Ffolliott gets off clear ; but Conn, in fleeing from crag to crag, is shot, and comes rolling to the ground at the very feet of his own sweetheart and the affianced wife of Robert, who by this time are both in the clutches of Kinchela. This leads up to the second great sensation of the drama. Preparatory to being buried, Conn is ‘stretched’ in his old mother’s cottage, and an elaborate ‘wake’ is held over him.” This scene was one of the most effective in the piece, it being deprived of any element of bad taste by the fact being previously made known to the audience by Conn himself, in the most humorous manner, that it is a mock wake after all, and a large portion of the fun being extracted from the fact that the man over whom the festive riot is being held is not dead, but alive. For Conn, of course, comes to life again in the nick of time, and is chiefly instrumental in satisfying poetic justice. Kinchela, under the delusion that he has killed Conn, is just in the act of carrying off the combined sweethearts of Conn and Ffolliott, who were the ordy witnesses of his crime, when he is shot dead, as he deserves to be, and the tangled skein is satisfactorily xmraveiled. The piece, was admirably mounted, and the calls for Mr. Massey, the scenic artist, were frequent. It has already been said that Mr. Wheatleigh’s “ Shaughraun” was quite out of the common. It was true acting, no overstraining for the sake of effect; no attempt, by means of buffoonery, to obtain a laugh that should oidy be raised by wit. Mr. Wheatleigh’a performance was a presentation of the Irish peasant as he is, not as he is invariably shown by actors who consider a mispronunciation of certain words, and a flourish of a short stick, a complete embodiment of a line of character they are quite ignorant of. Mrs. Darrell played the impulsive Irish lady, Claire Ffolliott, as only Mrs. Darrell could play such a part; and Mr. Darrell was equally effective as the English officer, looking, speaking,* and moving as a gentleman should, and not as the guy that an officer and a gentleman is usually made by those who undertake to pourtray such a part on the stage. A lady newtotheWelliugton boards. Miss Emma Rogers, appeared as Moya, and createdadecidedlyfavorableimpression. Witha pretty face and figure, and great capacity for such pai'ts as that of the peasant girl, Miss Rogers will be certain to become rapidly a prime favorite with Wellington audiences. Mr. Burford had apartin Harvey Duff to which he is capable of doing the greatest justice, and to which he would have done more justice, perhaps, had he been less exuberant in voice, action, and costume. Mr. Howard’s Father Doolan was his own and not the author's, with whom it was, unfortunately, evident that Mr. Howard had but little acquaintance. His efforts at the brogue, too, were amusing, but not from the cause which should have made them so, and in this he might have taken a lesson from Mr. Saville, who wisely remembered that all Irishmen do not speak like Dublin cardrivers, and spoke his lines naturally and to the approbation of the audience. Mr. Oily Doe ring’s Kinchela was very fair ; he would have been better cast for Father Doolan. Miss Ashton did not get at all as much out of Mrs. O’Kelly as she might have done. Miss Moore made up and acted the old keener Biddy Madigan very well. The subordinate and supernumerary parts were dressed and drilled in a manner that was quite refreshing after the incongruities of dress and the absence of drill to which we are used in such parts. We had almost forgotten to mention Miss Raymond, an established favorite, who played Arte O’Neill in the best possible maimer. The curtain had to be raised at the end of each act, and the piece is safe for a long run.