AMATEUR THEATRICALS.

Patea Mail, 14 August 1880, Page 2

AMATEUR THEATRICALS.

The Garrick Club at Patea have committed themselves to a fearfully interesting experiment. They have seriously, yet with hopeful trepidation, resolved to invito ladies to join the Club. As was said in a great crisis of English history, What next ?—and next ? We shall be having amateur theatricals on the cooperative principle ; and the legitimate drama will be in the ascendant. There will bo leading ladies as well as leading gentlemen. The fair Ophelia will exchange confidences with Touchstone ; and Claude Melnotte will whisper soft nothings in the coy car of Mrs Cluppins; while Sergeant Buzfuz lends his arm to Lady Gay Spanker. Hamlet and Hamlet’s Ghost will attend rehearsal with that famous savage, the fair but deserted Medea, who will be “supported” by Leah the Jewish maiden, and both will “ play up to ” Lady Macbeth. The Club is becoming rich in the dramatic variety of its members, and recent talented additions have made it a really powerful company ; so powerful that some expedient appears necessary to prevent the members becoming monotonously excellent. This tendency is to be counteracted by introducing a new element into the Club, a counterfoil, a sort of mirror in which these clever gentlemen may glass themselves—“ holding, as’t were, the mirror up to nature,” and realising for the first time that even leading tragedians have their faults. It has been found that, in private rehearsals, the only way to get an honest, intelligent opinion, free from glossing flattery, is to play before feminine critics. They never flatter. Their opinion is always straight and to the point. They never smile at a bad performance, and so the critic’s frown becomes a useful corrective. Now the co-operation of a few ladies in the Club will secure that eternal desideratum, a balance of forces. There will be quality as well as quantity. And the lady members will have unerring judgment in selecting suitable plays for performance ; while the Club will be elevated to the dignity of an institution for the advancement of dramatic art. This experiment ol obtaining a “ strong cast ” by inviting talented ladies to join the Club is, as we said, interesting. And what an added interest, not to say anxiety, the public will feel in going to see the newest London comedy played by “ladies and gentlemen” of the Patea Garrick Club ! That is to say, the public will go to see the ladies.