MAJESTIC

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 40, 10 May 1927, Page 15

MAJESTIC

“THE NIGHT OF LOVE” The court jester, genius of buffoonery, and often as not, tragic clown of fate, as well as target of heartless jibes for fiendish, half-mad masters, plays a conspicuous part in “The Night of Love,” Samuel Goldwyn’s epic of Spain’s feudal era, directed by George Fitzmaurice, and showing at the Majestic Theatre to crowded houses.

The jester was a very important and necessary figure in medieval life. He was generally born to his role and fell heir to it by right of heritage, as well as preparing for it by long years of arduous training. Usually deformed physically, he nevertheless, had keen mental powers, notwithstanding the popular notion that a jester had negative abilities-r----for to the jester passed all the strenuous work of keeping the king, or lord, continuously happy and in good spirits and never permitting boredom to pervade the atmosphere. Such a job, needless to say, must have taken up all of a good jester’s time—and woe to the jester if he failed in his fun. His fund of jokes had to be inexhaustible his humour never-lagging, and he was forced to laugh and be gay, even though his own heart be breaking. A jester’s life was indeed an exacting, and exciting, one, and quite thankless! Shakespeare was the first poet who gave the jester proper place, and nearly all the Bard’s dramas have a jester for “comedy relief.” John George, well-known characteractor, plays the jester in “The Night of Love,” investing the role -\#lth as much pathos and sympathetic appeal as comedy side-lights. Ronald Colman and Vilma Banky are featured in the stellar roles.