AMUSEMENTS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5219, 13 December 1877, Page 2

AMUSEMENTS.

Acrown’s worth of goodinterpretation.— Shaksperk. It is a very long time since I have appeared as a critic, and I do not know now that I should appear were it not for the circumstance that I attended at the Theatre Boyal last night for the first time for a very long period; and X may say at once that it was Mr. Walton’s performance of O’Callaghan in “His Last Legs” that provoked me to write something which would, as it were, tell people who care for good acting that there is now in Wellington an actor who, tried in a test part, has so approved himself as to dare comparison with Brooke, and not suffer much by the contrast. The performance last night was a benefit one, and it is to be presumed that the object was legitimate, as there was a crowded house. Anyway the performance deserved the attendance which it received. Signor and Signora Majeroni, who opened it, 'after some singing of a purely plagiaris’.ic type, must accept my apologies if I do not descant at length upon their merits. “A Kiss,” the little drawing-room comedy for three, in which they appeared, possesses no little novelty in plot and situation, and no little wit in language. The Signor and Signora, if necessarily imperfect in their pronunciation of a language which they have not yet completely acquired, taught a lesson to their British brother and sister artists in the theatre as to how ladies and gentlemen in ordinary life should walk, talk, and comport themselves. It was no wonder that the audience replied with applause and laughter throughout the piece, and called them at its termination. But “A Kiss” is what may, in literary language, be called a mere brochure ; and I should only insult a lady and gentleman ’of Signora and Signor Majeroni's admitted (though as yet, to my misfortune, unwitnessed by me) excellence if I were to enter into along criticism of a piece in which they were only, in sporting phrase, showing their paces. I may be permitted therefore to pass on to Mr. Walton’s performance of O’Callaghan in “ His Last Legs,” which is, as I have said, a test piece. In point of authorship it belongs to the time when authors took pains that the language of their plays should contain such wit that the actors had only to deliver it with due emphasis and expression to ensure a success. In point of acting, it awakens in me the memory of many an actor of Irish parts before such acting degenerated into mere clowning, and to myself and numbers I think in the theatre last night it had to show by contrast with the O’Callaghan of Brooke. I was accompanied to the theatre by two or three in a similar position as regards comparison as myself; and to know that their judgments coincided with mine is to feel tolerably certain that mine is correct. Sol shall say that sinoe Bronke ho one has approached the character of the Irish adventurer, in these colonies at least, until Mr. Walton was good enough to show us that he too could make it his own. It is so refreshing to see a gentleman play an Irish part with a thorough appreciation of what I may call the refinements of the brogue, with the knowledge that the stage Irishman is not necessarily a vulgar buffoon, devoting his existence to cursing and knocking people down with a stick, that I fear I may be betrayed into exuberance over the excellence of Mr. Walton’s impersonation, which I can only pronounce, as the audience did last night, one worth taking a great deal of trouble to see. In fact, as Albert Smith said, it is worth walking a long way in tight boots of a dusty day to look at. I should have preferred to have thought over it for a night before wilting of it, in order that I might have done more justice to its nuances, to its lights and shades, in fact to have told people with more detail why I liked it than to tell them now, as I am afraid I only do, how much I liked it. But it may be permitted me here to express surprise that ic took a benefit of some kind or another to draw such an audience as came together to witness Mr. Walton’s acting ; for common report has told me that last night’s, was that first really good audience that greeted him since his arrival in Wellington. As O’Callaghan himself might say, “The more’s the pity”—for those who stayed away. Since, like Boyle Roach’s bird, I could not have been in two places at once, I must leave notice of Mr. Dillon’s performance of Belphegor at St. George's Hall until I shall have seen him, which I hope to do to-night. HrsTiiroMASiix.