"BOUGHT AND PAID FOR."

Taranaki Daily News, 28 January 1916, Page 3

"BOUGHT AND PAID FOR."

j MISS MURIEL STARR'S FAREWELL. ' Melodrama modified perhaps best describes "Bought And Paid For," which was produced at the Theatre Royal last night by the J. C. Williamson Co. that is headed by Miss Muriel Stan-, who is making a farewell tour of the Dominion. The play is neither melodrama nor comedy, but has a "smack" of each, in a manner typically American. Virginia Stafford's husband has occasional periods of insobriety, thereby creating the question in her mind whether she is not more justified in leaving him, in order to retain her self-respect, than in abiding by the merely legal tie. She decides that*marriage is a sacrament consecrated by only love and respect and therefore 'leaves him, hut love is stronger than pride, and reformation of her husband and reconciliation conclude an ingenious play, The story, which is in four acts, may be briefly summarised:—Virginia Blaine is a telephone operator in a large hotel, a young woman whose every instinct is for the finer things of life." The distinguished millionaire, Robert Stafford, meets and admires her, and the first act snows Virginia Blaine, her sister Fanny (a crude and assertive type of woman)', and Fanny's fiancee, Jimmy Gilley, in Stafford's flat, where th»v have been invited to dine with him. ' The second act ia dated two years later, and takes place in Virginia's elaborate boudoir, she having by this time married Stafford, while Jimmy Gilley, the vulgar self-con-fident shipping clerk, has married Fonny, and been promoted to a well-paid post in Stafford's office. It is in this scene that Stafford comes home drunk, and insists on making love to his wife, who is repelled by the difference in the man whom ordinarily she loves and respects. Being repulsed'by her, he brutally reminds lier of all she has gained by her marriage, and insists that having "bought and paid for her," she is his •property. The curtain falls with the drunken husband smashing his way into his wife's bedroom. The third act'takes place in the same scene, and is devoted to an exposition of Virginia's philosophof marriage, and of the point of view (if Stafford, ending with the wife returning all she lias-over had from her husband, and leaving him with the assurance that she will never return to hiin until he comes to her. The final act occurs in the bleak apartments to which Jimmy Gilley, his wife, and Virginia have been forced to remove when Jimmy had to resign his ornamental post, and go back to the job of shipping clerk, and it is by means of Jimmy's desperate subterfuge that Virginia, now a shop girl, and her husband are brought again together. Mi.ss Muriel Starr, who is one of the most capable emotional actresses seen in New Zealand for many years, gave a very fine interpretation of the character of Virginia, and in the quieter and more humanly dramatic scenes she was specially good. Mr. C. A. Millward, as Stafford, the drunken millionaire, was admirably effective, and his powerful acting won unstinted encomiums. Quite a feature ot the performance was Mr. Hobart Cavanaugh's splendid conception of Jimmy Gilley, the perky, self assured clerk—equally "at home" in prosperity or poverty. Much of the humor of the piece devolves upon Jimmy; some of it is unconscious, some of it native, to him and Mr. Cavanangh gave full value to the role. As a Japanese valet, Mr. Leonard Stephens also added brightness, and his part was capitally taken Miss Gertrude Boswell, as Fanny Blaine, sister, a somewhat self-asser-tive and common, but withal a largehearted woman, was a conspicuous success. The minor parts were all capably filled. The play was finely staged, and it was witnessed by a very large and appreciative audience—one that should encourage "The Firm" to more often send along this way some of their "good goods."