BRILLIANT COMEDY

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 618, 21 March 1929, Page 15

BRILLIANT COMEDY

“TAMING OF THE SHREW” What a swaggering, swearing, swashbuckling Petruchio was Mr. Allan Wilkie in last evening’s performance of “The Taming of the Shrew”! What a stout- plate-throwing hearty gallant! What a perfect match for the scolding lvutharina! The audience last evening enjoyed a play that, so far as plot went, might have been the latest from America—slightly exaggerated. Mr. Wilkie gave a splendid performance and Mis Lorna Forbes, as that Katharina, “renown’d in Padua for her scolding tongue,” was delightful. How she rated her father, her sister and her attendants! How she railed at her husband —until he began to take her in hand. Her performance was all the more excellent because of the contrast which had to be made in the last few scenes—the tamed, obedient wife compared with the former shrew. Mr. Arthur Keane, as Tranio, the servant who takes his master’s place in the world v bile his master, Lucentio, goes off to woo the shrew’s sister, gave a display Gf sly, restrained acting that admirably fitted the character. Most of the more obvious humour came from me two less servants, Grumio, Mr. Milton Sands, and Biondello, Mr. Alexander Marsh. They were perfect clowns, who brought a laugh with them every time they appeared, especially m the little “invitation to the inn” in dumb show near the end of the piece. Mr. John Cairns as the elderly parent in terror of his daughter’s tongue, Mr. Herbert Sheldrick, as the semi-decnpit suitor for the hand of the gentle Bianca, Mr. Lennis Barry, as Lucentio. Miss Mildred Howard, as the gentle Bianca herself, all gave worthy performances. The acting as a whole was ideally suited to comedy play. Yesterday afternoon at a matinee the company played “Julius Caesar’ to a crowded house. Mr. Wilkie, as Mark Antony, made another success, particularly in Antony’s great speech to the mob after Caesar’s death. As Brutus, Mr. John Cairns gave a fine performance and as the irritable Cassius, Mr. Alexander Marsh was excellent. This evening the company will present “Othello.”

The story of Paramount’s “The Wedding March” is from the pen of Erich von Stroheim, the star and the director of the production. It deals with pre-war glory that was Vienna’s when that city was in its hey-day as the gay capital of Europe Tinder the rule of the late Emperor Franz Joseph. “The Wedding March” will be one of Paramount’s big pictures for 1929.