ENTERTAINMENTS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 170, 17 January 1912, Page 6

ENTERTAINMENTS.

MR. H. B. IRVING IN "HAMLET." PLANS OPEN TO-MORROW MORNING. To-morrow morning at Collier's the box plans will be opened at 8 a.m. for the first and only appearance here of England's foremost actor, Mr. H. B. Irving, in Shakespeare's famous tragedy, "Hamlet." Anticipating a large demand for seats, the management will (have a staff of ushers in attendance from an early hour to form a queue, which will ensure the earliest arrivals getting first choice of seats.

The advertisements do not exaggerate in the least when they inform us that the visit of Mr. H. B. Irving will be an epoch in local theatrical history. That his appearance in New Zealand is exciting more than the usual interest is very evident from the fact that his production of "Hamlet" has created quite a sensation, and the theatre in Auckland has been booked up, we are informed, for its entire run. Mr. H. B. Irving is the son of one of the greatest actors in the history of the stage. Sir Henry Irving was a man of the highest genius. He was not merely a great actor: he ! was an inspired artist, a deep thinker, j a great organiser. He possessed what even the immortal Shakespeare lacked—if we may judge by what the meagre personal impression the Swan of Avon left on his contemporaries. He had that j mysterious something sometimes called personal magnetism, by which a man attracts and fascinates his fellows. As a great critic once said of him, "The finest thing on any stage character of Irving was Irving himself." George Bernard Shaw pnee said, "Sir Henry Irving has invented a whole series of original romantic plays and given the credit of them without a murmur to William Shakespeare." By the force of his genius and personality Sir Henry Irving conferred dignity and glory on the British stage, and in any future history of it his name must hold a high and honored place. Merely to be the son of such a man is a distinction, but Mr. H. B. Irving has not ; only inherited his father's name, but he J has inherited his father's genius. He is a great actor, but he is also a scholar of considerable attainments and an author of some distinction. The actor who is merely an actor is not even that. And it can be truthfully said of the distinguished man who visits us on Monday as it could be said of .his great father, that he dignifies and elevates the stage because he carries to it, not merely the gifts of the born mimic, but also the higher gifts of the thinker and artist. The production of "Hamlet" will be staged on the same magnificent scale and presented by the same cast as when it was produced in London last year.