NEW REGENT

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1009, 27 June 1930, Page 17

NEW REGENT

“THE VAGABOND KING”

"The Vagabond King,” with its rich colour and swinging melodies, is thrilling audiences at the New Regent Theatre. Doris Iyenyon, who made the stage production famous, and Jeanette MacDonald in the feminine lead are responsible for some of the best singing numbers ever produced on the stage or screen, and, together with the beautiful settings depicted throughout the production, make it one of the most outstanding performances of the year. The supporting roles are played by Warner Gland, O. P. Ileggie and Lillian Roth, and the direction was handled by Ludwig Berger. Dennis King is the gay and carefree poet who bands together tho vagabonds of Paris in an effort to save tho city from the Burgundians, who are besieging it. O. P. Ileggie characterises tlie weak king, Louis XI., who appears to be cowed into inurotence by the attack of the besieging army. Villon’s desire to save the city is made stronger by liis passion for Louis’s niece. Louis is driven to desperation by a combination of internal and external lues, and lie finally offers to the leader of the vagabonds, whom fate has put in his power, the alternative of imprisonment or of reigning as King of Franco for six days and being hanged on the seventh. Villon, with the royal princess in liis imagination, decides on tho latter course, and the manner in which lie saves both his country and | himself, and wins the princess’s heart, i forms a most romantic plot.