VANBRUGH-BOUCICAULT

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 557, 9 January 1929, Page 14

VANBRUGH-BOUCICAULT

“ALL THE KING’S HORSES” “All the King’s Horses,” the comedy in which Miss Irene Vanbrugh and Mr. Dion Boucicault are to be presented by the J. C. Williamson, Ltd., management at His Majesty’s Theatre on Monday night next, presents Miss Vanbrugh as the wife of a ponderous ass who is everlastingly harping pn his dignity and his responsibilities. The man has ambitions; he would be a knight and a member of Parliament, and talk about “this grave crisis in the nation’s affairs.” He is always busy, even at home, and so his family must keep a continual holy Sabbat, while he is about. The result is thai his wife is profoundly bored by hijn. and has invented a deafness so that she may not have to listen to him. His children frankly dislike him. The boy wants to be an artist, and the girl wants to marry her father's secretary, Roger Elrington. No, says father. Jack must come into business, and Jill must marry by dear old friend. Sir Harry Vane, who can be so useful to me. This mutiny among the children father attempts to quel by refusing to give Jack an allowance and sacking Elrington. So far Humpty Dumpty seems jo have it all his own way, but a Mrs Maunders appears on the scene and has a little chat with Mrs. Everett. Mrs. Maunders, it turns out, was one* at Oxford, and took the fancy, amont others, of Wilfred Everett, who she called Willie. She had a daughter, and was duly provided for by a lump sum But the lump sum has given out, and times are hard, what with the rise in the cost of living and one thing and another. Then Alice Everett decided to push Humpty Dumpty off the wall, and she does so with great vim and vigour. “Miss Vanbrugh’s acting,” wrote a London critic, “at this point was traordinarily fine. We saw the thoughts chasing across, her mind, as she chatted to her brother, and at the same time decided how she was to use this unexpected knowledge for her owe and her children’s advantage. All the evening her acting was on that level. We heard her talking and observed her moving about the stage, and we saw her thinking and could almost tell each thought as it came into her mind. Great acting by a great comedienne. A large amount of interest centres in the appearance of Dion Boucicault, especially as he will appear in a part—that of Wilfred Everett, which may have been written for this brilliant actor.