The Spike or Victoria College Review, June 1903

Socials

Socials

" Negligens, ne qua populus laboret parce privatus nimium cavere; dona praesentis cape laetns horae et linque severa."

Horace.

Socials

Socials

Concert and Play.

To show the joy all felt at the thought of beginning work again, and to raise some money for the Easter trip, the first evening of this term was given over to revelry, in the form of a concert followed by a play. An excellent programme was provided, and the thanks of the College is due to some of Wellington's leading musicians and reciters for the readiness with which they give their help on occasions of this kind. Misses Parker and Page opened the programme with a pianoforte duet, tastefully played. "A Summer Night" was sweetly sung by Mrs. F. P. Wilson. Miss Julia Moran was loudly recalled for her violin solo, Papini's "Tarantelle." Mr. J. M. Clark recited Disowning's "Hervé Riel" excellently, and was recalled. Mr. G. Toopsood gave a description of a cricket match in his best style. Mr. A. Newton achieved signal success in his song "A Girton Girl," describing the troubles of a young man who thought Tolstoi was a racehorse and who had to take a "new woman" to dinner. As an encore lie explained why "Mother laid the carpet on the stairs." Mr. E. F. Hiscocks was loudly applauded for his clever and amusing lightning sketches.

The Play.

" Queen.—Was it, my lord, so very, very, bad?
Claudius.—Not to deceive my trusting queen, it was."

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

Expectation ran high when the curtain rose on the first scene of W. S. Gilbert's "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern," in which the great master of comic opera parodies "Hamlet, as he is acted." As G. Toogood, in the robes of King Claudius, confessed the sin of his youth—his five-act tragedy—a perceptible shudder passed through the audience. Miss Nell Batham, as Queen of Denmark, received the awful news with a grace and dignity which befitted her exalted rank. It was not, however, till Claudius crossed the stage in the bitterness of his humiliation that the audience seemed to see the concentrated essence of Irving, Bentley, and Wilson Barrett. But if Claudius was tragic, who can describe the grace and elegance of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern—A. S. Henderson and R. M. Watson. Who could wonder that the fair Ophelia, robed in dainty white and so charmingly portrayed by Miss F. G. Roberts, should forsake at once the antic Hamlet and admire the perfect mould of Rosencrantz. And Hamlet himself, so full of dark forbodings, so fall of long soliloquy, so lank and lean, with what grim earnest did he suffer "his lucid intervals of lunacy." F. A. de la Mare was most natural in the rôle, and he embraced Ophelia and the Queen at the last farewell, if not with practised skill, yet with manifest enthusiasm Miss E. Page, as the "Player Queen," was seen all too little, and G. V. Bogle sustained the part of "Player King" with all the fondness and delicacy the part demanded. A. G. Quartley was abundantly sepulchral as Polonius, while T. Seddon, R. Mitchell, and O. Stout were appropriately dignified and knightly as "Lords in Waiting."