A CLEVER COUNTRYWOMAN

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8348, 7 February 1913, Page 5

A CLEVER COUNTRYWOMAN

Miss Coristanee Clyde’s clever one-act play, ‘"Mr Wilkinson's Widow," given for tho first time at the Actresses’ Franchise League matinee last December in London, is excellent propaganda. The main theme is that a man may, if ho pleases, will all his property away from his wife, even if, as in this case, she

has put everything—money, personal devotion, the sacrifice of flelf---dtiring her ■whole married life into building up that property. . Mrs Wilkinson (played by Miss Blanche Stanley) looks upon married life as a duty; she does not hold that a woman should expect to get out of it personal happiness, except a certain oly ’appiness" which is, sho considers, too intangible to count; but she had expected that her years of eubservience to Josiah and his tantrums would receive some substantial recognition when the yoke was removed by his death. To his servants he leaves legacies o f «£2O and *£3o; to his eldest son all his property; to his wife, a corner in the old home which she had helped to make —and that corner dependent on her son's generosity. So her dreams of a little poultry farm in the home of her girlhood are shattered, and she sees before . her nothing but a life of idleness embittered by the constant presence, as mistress of the inn* of Jack’s wife, with whom she "doesn't get on/' The blow startles her into the discovery of her own personality. Josiah has proved by his outrageous will that ho does not consider her his widow, and who is she to set herself up against his decision ? She is not his widow, she tells the family, and exchanging her heavy weeds for a coloured dress of old-fashion* ed cut (she has left the business so seldom that she has no modern dresses) she goes out to tell people of the injustice she has suffered. And her young daughter-in-law, the wife of the youngest ©on, stands by her. "This is very hard on me," say© the eldest .son. That is tho story, and although there is no mention of tho vote, it must set even an "Anti" thinking.