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DUSTY CURTAINS

NINETEENTH CENTURY PLAYS, edited by George Powell; Geoffrey Cumberlege, Oxford University Press, English price 7/6. "| {OWEVER unremarkable they are as literature. . .." says the introduction. This is understating it -so far as concerns most of the plays in this edition. In Caste (T. W. Robertson) a gentleman marries an actress whose father has no grammar, won’t work and drinks. Our hero’s mother, the Marchioness, finds this character impossible, and frankly he is rather a hurdle. It is difficult to understand why anyone should go to the expense of reprinting this play. In Lady Audley’s Secret (C. H. Hazlewood) the secret is that Lady Audley is really the wife of another man. He turns up and threatens to expose her. But resourceful Lady Audley hits him >on the head with a pump handle and bundles him into a well, whence he~returns in Act III miraculously preserved. It takes all of Acts II and III to see justice done on the

malefactress. Ticket of Leave Man (Tom Taylor) is about a convict (wrongly convicted), who rehabilitates his name. Most of if is just old time "melodramma" of no merit. Money (Bulwer Lytton) is just as silly. On the other hand, Two Roses (James Albery), is charming-a period piecelight, delicate, whimsical. A revival of this piece is indicated. The Colleen Bawn (Dion Boucicault, father of the one you know) is probably the worst of the. lot. None of the Irish in it ever existed except on the stage. Ludicrous dialogue, absurd situations, mostly in bad taste. A Pair of Spectacles (Sydney | Grundy) is worth reprinting, but Black | Ey’d Susan (Douglas Jerrold) and The Bells (Leopold Lewis) _would hardly please an audience today. Henry Irving | took the principal part in the first pro- |

duction of The Bells.

F. J.

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This article text was automatically generated and may include errors. View the full page to see article in its original form.I whakaputaina aunoatia ēnei kuputuhi tuhinga, e kitea ai pea ētahi hapa i roto. Tirohia te whārangi katoa kia kitea te āhuatanga taketake o te tuhinga.
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19540423.2.27.6

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 770, 23 April 1954, Page 14

Word count
Tapeke kupu
297

DUSTY CURTAINS New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 770, 23 April 1954, Page 14

DUSTY CURTAINS New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 770, 23 April 1954, Page 14

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