HIS MAJESTY’S

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 171, 10 October 1927, Page 15

HIS MAJESTY’S

“THE WINTER’S TALE” “The Winter’s Tale,” a comedy by William Shakespeare. Presented at His Majesty’s on Saturday night by Alfen Wilkie. CAST Leontes .. * Allan Wilkie Camillo Milton Sands Antigen us William Lockhart Cleomenes John Cameron Polixenes Frank Clewlow Florizel Dennis Barry Old Shepherd .. Vincent Scully Clown Herbert Sheldrick Autolycus ... Arthur Keane Paulina Lorna Forbes Perdita Dulc.*e Cherry Kermione Miss Hunter Watts “Merry c»r sad, shall it be?” As sad as the spectacle of true love killed by suspicion, as tragic as jealous evil and remorse; as pathetic as poor, patient Hermione, Griselda-like, never fearing? but that her evil stars will pass in the gods' good time. And merry? Why, merry as the marriage bells of Perdita and the light hearts of the vagabond Autolycus and the shepherds. A very autumn-time of happiness with all things come to a ripe sweetness and with time’s hands upturning a veritable cornucopia against the insults of the years before! “The Winter’s Tale,” one of the lastwritten of Shakespeare’s romances, divides naturally into two parts; the first containing the moil of tragedy, mistrust, jealousy and cruelty, which surrounds the birth of the Sicilian princess Perdita. The second is a merry pastoral of the next generation, rising swiftly to the happiest ending, in which all he has lost is restored to th€s white-haired and repentant old Leontes. There are some conclude that Leontes is Shakespeare himself, make-be-lieving that the “fair, faithless” Mary Fitton, has been wrongly accused and imagining an ultimate happiness. It was written in middle-age when the fire of his youth no longer flamed, but glowed redly in its embers, when mature judgment might look calmly out on the world and men coming and going upon the earth. Not one jest relieves the tenseness of the first half, but humour quickly begins to poke his tongue through the bars of tragedy in the second. In an overlapping scene, in which the babe is left in a remote place of Bohemia, the death of Antigonus is made farcical by the humorous description of Clown and the shrewd country-wit of his father. And after the entrance of the rogue Autolycus the fooling is delightful. The idyll of Perdita, and of Florizel, is tolld by the greatest poet in English and the slight obstruction in the course of their true love, only throw's their constancy into better relief. The production of the “Tale” satisfied a big audience at His Majesty’s on Saturday. Mr. Wilkie made a dignified Leontes, King of Sicilia, though in the staccato raging of his jealousy, his utterance was sometimes indistinct. A strangely true example of the Wildish doctrine that “all men kill the thing they love” is this Leontes, demanding punishment for his untainted honour, closing his ears to even the Oracle of Delphos, taunting and torturing.. until breaking-point is reached and passed. The much-wronged queen Hermione was a creature of pathetic grace. The cum of her neck, her humble dignity and her fine low-toned answer to the Court of Justice, would have melted the heart of any tyrant but Leontes. Miss Hunter Watts made the queen live. Delightful as the daffodils she described in those exquisite lines was Dulcie Cherry’s Perdita, the shepherdess who was also the daughter of a king. All her lines were poetry. Dennis Barry, with the restraint of an actor, made a young, enthusiastic Florizel, head-over-heels in love, as well he might be. As Paulina, who stage-manages most of the play. Lorna Forbes spoke her lines most musically and rose to heights of denunciation. Her ill-fated spouse Antigonus wajs worldly-wise and sympathetic in the hands of William Lockhart. Vincent Scully’s old shepherd was an excellent piece of work, and Herbert Sheldrick fooled h€iartily as Clown. But Arthur Keane’s Autolycus outshone . all the other comedy roles. Vagabond, spruicker and cut-purse, his humour burst through to the sympathy of the audience. Frank Clewlow was not marvellously convincing as Polixenes, King of Bohemia. “The Winter’s Tale” will be presented again to-night.