AMUSEMENTS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 163, 19 October 1910, Page 8

AMUSEMENTS

HAMILTON, PLIMMER AND DENNIS' TON COaIPANY. The excel lon t Dramatic Company now travelling under the management of the above will visit New Plymouth for two nights, Thursday and Friday, October 20 and 21, staging "Lover's Lane" on the openiing night, and ''The Passing 01 the Third Floor Back," by Jerome K. Jerome, on Friday night. Mr. Harry Plimmer will sustain the principal role of the "Mysterious Stranger" in the latter piece, and will be ably supported by Mr. Reynolds Denniston, Harry Neville, Charles'Thorsby, Paul Latham, S. A. Fitzgerald, Masters Frank Crook, Walter Mealing, Hilary Lawrence, Miss Myra Wall. Mrs. Robert Brough, Misses Lizette Parkes, Alice Deorwyn, Valentine Sidney, Marie Le Croisette, Tempe Pigott." Beatrice Usher, Alyce Holroyd, Fanny Lawrence, Elsie Parkes and others. 'Who is the "Mysterious Stranger?" The answer is in the play: Who is he? Whence came he? '"The Mysterious Stranger" is the most compelling character ever conceived by the master mind of the plavwright. Mr. Forbes Robertson says: '"I think that the Stranger is supposed to be an indclinite personality, not the Divinity nor any human being, but ti "moral force" —or, in other words, a character typifying the better self in each one of us. In 'The Passing of the Third Floor Back," living breathixicr types are depicted, each working out. his or her destiny under the grinding influence of the "Mysterious Stranger. The play is a dramatisation of the Jerome Iv. Jerome story of the same name. It details the whimsical adventures of a gentle old. man in a grimy London boarding-house. Nobody knows who he is or why he is there. He is a mystery—a mystery in a rusty black suit scattering sunshine in a dark place. Everybody's unhappy in the boarding-house; everybody is poor and mean and illtempered and dishonest and lascivious, and nasty and cruel. The old man begins on them one at a time. One at a time lie eases their load, smoothes out their wrinkles, perfumes their hejirtj, strengthens , their hands, changes their lamentations into lyrics. The old thief* ing landlady; the quarrelling pair; the lovelorn, desperate daughter; the tempted "irl-of-all-work; the tempting gambler; the starving artist; the subtle Jew. All' are changed from sardonic slaves into folk of light and glory. When this is accomplished, the old gentleman of the third floor back passes out into the ■night to in other wretched dwellings and do his work there. was ! there so light yet so fine a note of humanity and sweet thouglitfulness as in this little play. It will do all of US real good to ase it. box plan at Collier's.