AMUSEMENTS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 157, 12 October 1910, Page 4

AMUSEMENTS

IDEAS FROM "LOVERS' LANE:"

How far should '-breadth of view" beallowed to extend? The question is brought into the limelight of public? notice in the play "Lovers' Lane," byclever Clyde Fitch. He has made hisleading character the Rev. Thos. Singleton, an Anglican clergyman of very broad views indeed, and the playwright "heroises" him for those actions that many would heartily and honestly condemn. The stage is occasionally held up £s a great teacher, and it is a great teacher, in that it presents pabulum for discussion on every conceivable subject, but it would be wise, nay foolish,, were we to accept the playwright's conclusions as correct in every case. In "Lovers' Lane," to be seen in New Plymouth on October 20, we have a young clergyman of pronouncedly "broad views," butting up against everybody in the parish with them. He is out against the old and moat sacred traditions of a conservative little community, all with the best of Intentions. He actually introduces billiards and cards into the village club, holding that such recreations

are preferable to evil-doing which might take place were those pastimes non-ex-istent in the village. The older inhabitants are aghast at his radical ideas, but the character carries the sympathy, of the audience. Should that be the case? Is there not another view—that the taste for cards and billiards, created in an innocent enough fashion, might result in a craving for those games in places and under conditions not quite so inocuous as the village club. Those simple village folk have doubtless lived happily enough for generations without cards and billiards, and this young parson, with a. kind of egotism peculiar to the would-be reformer, comes along with what he terms the "rational" view, which, to the training and intellect of his parishioners, is a most irrational an<T unsettling view. For holding these views and generally playing "old Harry" with the parish, he is asked to resign* Then again the Rev. Mr. Singleton is very daring in another matter. He makes bold to decline to marry one of his parishioners—a nice young girl—to a divorcee, simply because he knows that the man has not "played the game" with his •first wife. That is all very well, and doubtless his action would be upheld by every right-feeling person, but it turns out afterwards that he is in love with the girl himself. • Does that strengthen or weaken his case? There are many other interesting points in this charming play, in which runs a vein of intellectual thought apart from the clever character-drawing and atmosphere of the play.