ST. JAMES

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 769, 16 September 1929, Page 15

ST. JAMES

SUCCESS OF “RIO RITA” The St .James Theatre was lull again on Saturday evening when another large audience warmly applauded “Rio Rita” with its brilliant company headed by Gladys Monorieff and Janette Gilmour. Musical comedy laughs at logic no. “Rio Rita” fulfils that characteristic. There is all the blaze of colour of a Mexican outpost on the Rio Grande — orange sunlight, balconies, moons pretty girls in sets of Ill’s and -4’s mandolins, mystery'—a -whirl of dancing and a squad of revolvers in holsters. In the immediate background there is a mystery bandit, the Kinkajou. pursued by* 17 Texan rangers, who pause in the hunt occasionally’ to sing fine, throaty choruses. General Enrique Joselito Esteban, and a Central American army of four, is also in the. hunt, but with the alluring, adorable Rita as the quarryBut the plot is often delightfully swallowed up in a tide of bright little things with bright little feet, who make the adobe walls and cornices of the hacienda rock to their footwork. ; At their head trips and tumbles Janette Gilmore, who is making a great I success of her first appearance in New 1 Zealand. She is a bright blonde, full of dash, and an eccentric dancer of ! unusual cleverness.