SHAKESPEAREAN SEASON

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 596, 23 February 1929, Page 15

SHAKESPEAREAN SEASON

IMPROVEMENTS IN STAGING Since his last visit to New Zealand in 1927, Mr. Allan Wilkie, whose Shakespearean season opens at His Majesty’s Theatre on Saturday, March 2, with “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” has sought to make still further improvements in his staging. He has had most beautiful and appropriate stage settings painted by the wellknown Melbourne artist, Mrs. Howell, and novel and artistic lighting effects are assured by the acquisition of a lighting plant specially designed on the most advanced European models. Under these conditions plays which have been staged on former visits to Auckland should have a new charm and an added interest.

It is interesting to observe that since September, 1920, when Mr. AVilkie organised his permanent Shakespearean company, close upon 3.000,000 people have witnessed his presentations; that is to say, a number exceeding one-third the total population of Australia and New Zealand have seen Shakespeare through the medium for which the plays were written and intended —the stage.

These figures clearly demonstrate that Slieakespearean production, so far from being the “caviare to the general” that is commonly supposed, are still, when adequately presented, even after a lapse of three and a-balf centuries, the most popular form of dramatic entertainment.

AVith the new artistic stage settings, superb costumes and a greatly strengthened cast, it is anticipated that the forthcoming' season will be found to excel in all-round artistry any previous Shakespearean performances staged in the Dominion. In the opening play, “The Merry AVives of Windsor,” Mr. AY’ilkie will be seen as Sir John Falstaff, Miss Hunter-Watts as Mistress Ford, and Mr. Alexander Marsh, a newcomer with a great reputation as a Shakespearean actor, fills the role of Ford.

It would seem that it would be almost impossible to find a person who would not find something to his or her taste in “Fashion Madness,” starring Claire AVindsor. It is seldom that a film story covers such a wide range of activities. The red-blooded man finds refreshment in the great open spaces of the north woods, where part of the action is laid. It is the country of forest fires and game. The sportsman is interested in the powerful speed yacht in which the heroine is spirited away. The thrill-seeker finds one of those hair-raising, breathsuspending, crawly thrills which make a big picture in the fall of Tanaka over a 1,500 ft precipice. There are film favourites in the cast too, including Claire AVindsor, Reed Howes, Laska Winter, Bonald McNamee and Boris SnegofP