Zena Dare (1887-1975)

"The Catch of the Season"
By Seymour Hicks, Cosmo Hamilton, H.E.Haines and Evelyn Baker.
Produced at The Vaudeville Theatre, London.
Reviewed in The Daily Mail (London) - 10th September, 1904.

Miss Charlotte Yonge once wrote a charming book of stories, in which the old fairy tales were adapted to a modern setting. The same notion is now employed in musical comedy with considerable success by Mr.Seymour Hicks and Mr. Cosmo Hamilton in "The catch of the Season."

It is certainly new on the stage. For although we have often had the fairy tale used as the framework for the irresponsible humours of the pantomime, it is in the retelling of the story through modern characters that the chief piquancy lies. Captain Marshall's name has been mentioned in connection with the authorship of this play, and perhaps it is this idea which is his. If so, it was almost a pity that one could not see it developed in comedy in the light and fanciful manner in which he writes so happily. Perhaps we may have, later on, some other tale treated by him in such a way. Meanwhile, although the work of Mr. Hicks and Mr. Hamilton is neither much more ambitions nor much better than most entertainments of its kind, the application of the fairy tale gives it a quite special character and charm.

CINDERELLA RETOLD

"The Catch of the Season" is "Cinderella" retold. Miss Zena Dare, compelled by her stepmother to live upstairs in the house in Berkeley Square, and to take her homely meals off kitchen crockery, while her stepsisters go off to the Duke of St. Aubyn's ball, is a very pretty Cinderella. She dances gracefully, she sings with the sweetest of smiles, and the two little sentimental scenes between her and Mr. Hicks - who is, of course, the fairy-prince Duke - are played with real taste and charm.

In the second act the authors, borrowing shamelessly from Mr. Barrie's "Quality Street," require her to assume an Irish accent, in order that the Duke, who has seen her as the subdued Angela, may fall in love with her again as the coquettish Molly O'Halloran. She does it delightfully, even to the point of singing an Irish song, and her duet in this character with the Duke is one of the prettiest things in the play.

Mr. Seymour Hicks as a modern fairy prince is infectiously full of spirits - dancing, smiling, singing, and making jokes all over the place, with himself and against himself. He has a capital song, "Church Parade," which he and a chorus of ladies sing with such verve that one easily forgives him for working so obviously hard.

Miss Rosina Filippi is the modern fairy godmother, who brings with her an army of milliners, and directs them with the fire-irons instead of a magic wand, while they dress Cinderella for the ball at the end of the first act. She brings to the entertainment a geniality and good humour which are of the greatest value. Mr. Sam Sothern, as a character called Lord Dundreary, is as nonchalant as ever, but the modarn Dundreary is a very different person from the lackadaisical figure impersonated by Mr. Sothern's father. Miss Hilda Jacobsen and Miss Barbara Deane both sing well - the latter with a particularly charming voice - and the chorus of "Gibson Girls," guests and the rest contribute plenty of good-will, good looks, and good dresses.

HIT OF THE PIECE

But the hit of the evening was unquestionably made by the small boy - Master A. Valchera - who took the part of a lovesick page, hopelessly attached to Cinderella. His song in the first act, and his manner of singing it, with his Byronic interjection between the verses, "My God, how I love her," was absolutely immense. He has not only a gloriously comic little face, but an imperturbable assurance and an unerring instinct for effect. It is worth coming many miles to hear him talk of his murderous designs on his rival, and the "five-line heading in the 'Daily Mail'" which is to be the result.

There is not very much more to be said about the entertainment itself than can be told by speaking of the performers. For in such a piece the interpreters are the play. There were several songs with the elaborate actions and paraphernalia in the chorus which appear to find favour. There were some spirited dances, arranged by the best of comic opera stage-managers, Mr. Edward Royce. There were "emotional gowns," and there was some very tuneful and pretty music by two new composers, Herbert E. Haines and Evelyn Baker, who are responsible for the score. Altogether a very bright and attractive entertainment.