AMUSEMENTS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 160, 15 October 1910, Page 7

AMUSEMENTS

KAMILTON, PLIMMER AND DENNISTON COMPANY. The above new management intend visiting and playing in the Theatre Royal for two night on Thursday and Friday, October 20 and 21. On the opening night they will produce "Lovers' Lane," which was such an immense success in Sydney and Auckland. The story of "Lovers' Lane" may be described •as one which has been written round a good-hearted minister, the Rev. Thomas Singleton, who opens his heart and his home to the poor and the unfortunate. This bachelor parson in a slow-going village has a household which includes Miss Mattie, his brother-in-law'* second wife's sister; Uncle Bill, a derelict; Aunt Martha, "a perfect lady," who lost her money in a bank smash; and Simplicity Johnson, an orphan girl full of fun and mischief, whom the parson has taken in hand after three orphan asylums had found her too incorrigible, even for their discipline. Yet room is found for more unfortunates. Mrs. Woodbridge, the leader of the choir, discovered by the ladies of the Sewing Circle to be a divorced woman, is thrust out of home and church alike, but a refuge for her and her little lame boy is found in the hospitable parsonage, much to the horroT of the Sewing Circle. The action of the piece really starts when the dissolute Herbert Woodbridge, the former husband of the woman who has found shelter in the parsonage, presents himself to be married to Mary Larkin, a girl of eighteen. The minister loves Mary Larkin, yet he is' prepared to give her up if Woodbridge reforms. Themarriage is postponed on the understanding that Woodbridge is to return in six months a changed man to claim his young bride. When Woodbridge does return it is to marry the wife he has wronged. In this way the divorced woman and the divorced man go arm-in-arm again in Lovers' Lane, and the parson and Mary arrange their own marriage, while the trees in the orchard walk are bright with Spring blossoms, and the branches are full of birds. The "episodes" in which the Rev. Thomas Singleton and Simplicity Johnson are brought together make some of the best scenes in the play. "Lizette" Partes plays Simplicity Johnson. On the Friday night the company will produce "The Passing of the Third Floor Back," by arrangement with Rupert Clarke and Claude Meynell. , The Box plan is at Collier's.