The Daily News THURSDAY, DECEMBER 6. "THE PLAY'S THE THING."

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 81899, 6 December 1906, Page 2

The Daily News THURSDAY, DECEMBER 6. "THE PLAY'S THE THING."

The human desire for excitement, healthy or otherwise, is not absent from New Zealand. New Zcalandei- are well-educated and reasonable beings, and it is just a little wonderful that tiw sense of humour shou d not make them regard one of the commoner avenues for rousing feelings tiiat ought to lie dormant, as of doubtful utility. Lately a great and girted singer has b«n giving of her very best in N-w Zealand. Md le Do.ores can fill tne greatest continental theatres. She attracts immense crowds in Australia, sue is preeminent —with one doubtful exception—at a sopranu. Yet for all her heaven sent gifts she cannot attract in any of the towns, not excepting New plymouth, as many New Zealanders as can a lurid melodrama. It is quite unaccountable.

The theatre-goer simply rushes to see impossible rubbish put on with a wealth of ghastly detail. Murders are as common in these melodramas as footlights. The villains are 110 represented as moral maniacs, but ac, every day persons whose villainies the father of a family and the mother cf ditto are expected to enjoy. The hero and heroine of a modem rnelo 1 ' drama are usually idiots who would not be permitted to be at large for ten minutes in real life, wlii'c their troubles are invariably brought about by a failure to exercise third standard intelligence. The evidence of anybody in a red wig, speaking with a cockney accent, i always accepted as conclusive evidence by a melodramatic judge, and virtue—otherwise idiocy—always gets its just reward in the end.

In a recently-played me'odrama which has been giving thousands of people more or less delicious creeps all ove'i this highly-educated laud, there are at least six murdeis. Some b.\ shooting:, otners by drowning, poison and delightful means of the kind. A mere perusal of the actua.ities ot life in the papers are, one wou.d think, sufficiently appalling without having to view manufactured sensation absolutely impossible and merely tolerated because of the morbidity that is fed by,.this sort of Hash. lake tne issue of one average paper. "Thei. of lodge funds by a secretary,''' "Dynamite explosion in Germany.' "Al.egcd then by a constable,' "Gold robbery in Westraia," "Alleged inuinlicide,'' more "allcgcu infanticide," "Escape from gaol,' "Deata by hanging, ' "Suicide,' ami other lesser sensations. It appears that these everyday horrors are too commonp.ace.

THE innocent boy, the leputablo father, the loving mother, desire to seethe heroine's only child floggt-d to death, or the, saimed heroine thrown ovei Loudon Bridge, ploughed into -i paddock, strewed into a coffin while still alive, baked in an oven or otherwisa disposed of. 'i'lie man who would get angry at a school teacher tor thrashing ms son wiih a supp e jack will applaud most cheerfully tne last dying gasp of the villain ol ten murdei6. The mother of seven will become quite teaiful at the nicely dressed heroine who, if she had exercised a little common eyesight, and a small amount of common sense,

would not have been frozen to death in the paper show in a cardboard park. Melodrama is al.'eged to teach some highly moral lessons. Can anyone believe that the ultimate rescue from the wiles of a stage-maniac, ot a stage idiot and the ",iappy-ev-r afterwaids," of the virtuous win haven't got sense enough to come :n out of the snow, is doing anybody any good? Anytning in history thai has been especially vil.ainous—bushranging, convict-life, burglary, horse doping, etc.—if built into a play icei'tain of success.

MELODRAMA doe; not require genius lo piesi-hl it. It is the horror oi it mat makes it suecessiul and not t1... ait of it. It is desLiucuve of an. in a countiy like New Zealand where w- are so riioial tnat a pest-ca.d ".u the nude" oneiids us, we sti.l nock 'esee stage minder—both of peisoo. aiU piay—and are not offended. The no.y ones of the earth have become speechless with horror at the presentation of a problem play which lias shown some p.iase of social sin, oilier than murder. The mon.er of a fam lly who would be suocKcd by the sig.it of "The i-ires of St. John" oi

"Magna" (bota artistically exce.kn. and works of gemus), would agice that biro had had "a lovely tunc' after sue had been row. ling 111 a holocaust of nbludiunia 110:11.1 a, supposing always mat vnlue—or idiocy—won in ihe end. Liidcr sonic 01 our exccl.eut iegis.ation, pubiicaiions which might be likely to mjuie 111. youtiuul mind or the youthful mora s are P'o-> hibned, but the gal.cnc = at our theatres, when theie is a p.uicuk.rly .ui'id molodiama, lu.l "1 b.o„d, wails, woe and mo old coiicmiiaiUs, arc trammed with you-hi all convinced that tne more stiikiing, t, e more murders, the more uciuie idiocy tne p, ay contains, the b-iUr is it worth the oceing.

MIiLODRAJIIC art—if one may make the mistake of calling 11 an—lievet progresses. 'Pheie are no new me ociainas. The public does not a-k ior ucm. Tiiey vaiy only in Hie matter of the murder and the general villainy. The manager who can buy a new kind of deaih for the second act is a fortunate person. The pubic doc:, not reason ual that managei is appealing to its worst Us inoi'. ignobie fe.lingn. Ihe public does not loci that Hie witnessing 01 atayt-hoirord, stage lmpoosilnlnies ami stage heioic idiocies merely show lira, the public ai'e modem savages alter all. If it is immoral' to read those classic rascals, Folding, Smol .ttt, Zola, who gloiK'd in pourtraying social climes of the lesser s,,i-i. isn't it a grealet tin. to see dcpic.cd, with all possible ltalism, ihe greatest ciime of a.l—muidei ; Tne mosi r.sque exhibition at the Parisian cale chantaiii, tne nx-cxcitom,iu of the "amusements" at u Moulin Rouge, do not condone the givaUs, crime ol ali, nor do laey puuriiay them. They are less objectionable than the modem melodrama to which one may take his mother or his sister or his sweetheart.

;;<><)!> folk have pmpeilv enough—l)iii ■ •!il, .'I.- an adv. l<> the plays —l)m'ii highlv indignant over diama'and (.''iin'dic- iIj ;1 I. have (halt lighilv , : -.■■:. u.-lv wit i .-■ x :n.i In. for iicamc it" is nm-iil"M-;l tin.l .1 phiy ikr ' I'll,- Spring C iikcn" cnummusI-; ■ uec.ssful in An--: raba.isa i'.ls- too highly colurul fur -Vw Zen and. Tiii-ii.- are- no minders oi' lru'iuis in : t but—and hole i<> tin.- big "but"—-there, is mi ••virtue" in it. A.- long as a dramatist can i>vol in goic fol ' a " < lC '' (iv two -ukl fiiiii'ly get t'>' v'l ain o ■■•■ly a prayer i.i.i ill.- ara.iV.hl. i.r bring the pin aiod heroine salVl'v into the fold of in,-church, iiic public be'i.ves •he diani.uist ha« wriilen a lugi'dy moral plav. A pili. i«■ u- iri'x>iiie is ihe roiled thine.' Mind r p'jivs and s-x ii.'iyi aKvay- "take on." Tin' g.-nd folk do not bk'' *ex pay- mill i! ran be shown tlia! ilr-y wind ip «itn li.e i-iiivi.i'.u of 'he lieathen „i'.s,;..i-iii,i t f.i'ili-.' kind.

THE 110111 wiio en.iin i.dc und "i-'nod ihe public was Wis "ii liar.cil who ',',"!. "Th- Sign of lie 00-s." ,1 plaj ihal diixnd'd nitii'-ly |,,r \--< in ii on an exhibition of i'ie u'd-o v pa'-ion of a R man pi.-feci In ,1 Chri-tian gii'. Mad Wilson Ha,roll lala'll that plav. givn I 1 nioileril Mir•<,uinlingo and (livested r. of Ihe nil ■if ~ll'g.d "id ,;i..ii," 1,,- would hav had Hie good roll;, do.cn 00 imn 'k as 1,1,0. hj, had ih'y H 1,)., glo-.v-lUiseK. ~u '--.f,,! 'lasaa"" oi'" ii;e bond ol n'icloi and iimno'alitv. Vi'.ilh'l ' 1:1-1,11' n'l ,01 who onihsstsiojs wha' ihe rli bli,

" (lie CI ris.ii,!," I'lie: '•' lie- paipnse \\i!„n Uai.e t .IVec'.d in lb ■ .-"ni" way. But while we . -ti =•11 lI ihat t'oe plays which d a! wiiii tie •'.■livable'' frailties of human ni'ioi" d" no g"ocl. we a'o c( ntend that the murder p'ay, nearly all me'ochama. does infinitely men haim. ?ileh'(bama is bad for ait. bid for inora's, bad for education, and good for managers. And at the mi nv-nt it is booming in New Zealand with a boom that can be heard, from the Cape to the Bluff .