PEOPLE & THEATRES.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVI, Issue 149, 23 December 1908, Page 7

PEOPLE & THEATRES.

« A FEW CONTRASTS. AMERICAN FASHIONS. A CHAT WITH MR. HENRY KOLKER. "The theatres do a very, very big business. Companies, and companies, and companies travel about. Millions and millions are invested in perfectly magnificent buildings. One wonders where the people will come from to bring a profit, but they do come," ran a comment to-day by Mr. Henry Kolker, a well-known American actor, and a member of the Williamson Company which arrived from Sydney to-day. "In ten years the investments in theatrical enterprises have increased by itwo thousand per cent., and the business is still growing." In the States the theatres and music-halls are much sought by the folk with a world-wide reputation for hustling. THE TWO TRUSTS. In . the United States there are two groat dramatic organisations, one for the "big business" (the better class of plays) and. the other for melodrama, and they have their theatres in all the principal towns. "The fellow who wants pure and unadulterated melodrama stays away .from the two-dollar house," said Mr. Kolker. He goes to the placewhere one of the trusts serves up the latest in sensationalism, which may include a thrill provided by an imitation locomotive that seems to come from far away, and dashes up to the footlights with steam pipes hissing. "You pays your money and you takes your choice," or vice-versa, is the rule in* large American towns. The specialisation allows various sections of the public to have a night's entertainment according to their own faney — to sup full of horrors at a melodrama or to sip the sweetness of the more or less "legitimate." And if the people do not care for something in three or four acts, they go to the music halls. The appetite for vaudeville fare grows keener, year by year, but Mr. Kolker does not think that the wonderful popularity of music-hall "all-sorts" sweets interferes with the taste for more solid nourishment. They all go together with a whirl, and every house, with an attraction worth a call, draws people enough to gladden tho management. Though the flow of dramatic talent is rather forced into the two trust channels, Mr. Kolker stated that the field in America was so large that it was not possible for the close corporations to squat upon it all to the exclusion of everybody else. He mentioned one man, who declined to work in with the trusts, and he did a splendid theatre business, though the trust did put serious obstacles in his way. , ABREAST OF THE TIMES. The American authors, continued the visitor, aim at keeping up to date in ifcheir themes. Hence "mental telepathy" has been introduced, and it figures in one of the plays which are in the repertoire of the Williamson Company. New phases of life or thought are never very old before they are switched into van American play. The foibles of the masses, the "methods" of financiers and other specialities of existence in America are promptly put before the footlights. The drama thus tends to be kiuematographic and phonographic, with real Wall-street and real New England drawing rooms and other real places supplying the films and records. In straight-out melodrama, of course, the setting counts for most in America ■just as in Australia and New Zealand, but in the higher drama " the play is the thing" in the States, says Mr. Kolker. The scenery is just adequate ; it is something m good taste, and is altogether subordinate to the real business I of the night, which is drama. AUSTRALIANS MORE EMOTIONAL. The " scare " headings of some American newspapers which may reach the New Zealand public, the messages about 4th July celebrations, and other reports tend to give people at the Antipodes an idaa that the inhabitants of United States cities are emotional, excitable, and ardent lovers of sensationalism, and ever eager for new thrills. Mr. Kolker, howover, believes — so tar as demeanour in a theatre can prove — that Australians are more emotional than Americans. By the way, this statement, will recall the fact that New Zealanders, who heartily greeted the American fleet at Auckland, were described, in a complimentary manner, of course, as an " emotional people " by American papers at the time of the jubilations. Mr. Kolker confesses that he was surprised — and a little disconcerted at the moment — at an Australian audience's early and emphatic demonstration of approval of the play and the players. The first impulse was to be alarmed, but the note in the audience's choruses speedily made the company comfortable. American audiences, says Mr. Kolker, usually sit more quietly, but "shout at it" if something specially takes their fancy. SHAKESPEARE'S RESURRECTION. In Australia the company played "Twelfth Night" and "The Taming of the Shrew," and those plays had as good a run as anything else in the box. At first it was intended to give the people only " the Shrew,' but the welcoming of this touch of Shakespeare was so unmistakable that another was given. The people had previously seen Garrick'G adaptation of " the Shrew," but were mostly strangers to the real Shakespearian article. . Travelling about between various points of the Commonwealth, Mr. Kolker satisfied himself that Australians had not forgotten the works of Shakespeare. In America, he added, Shakespeare was always having an innings somewhere or other. Always four or five stars were shining in Shakespearian heavens. It was the fashion for many notable actors and actresses to rise to conquer in Shakespeare after they had perhaps stooped tcr conquer in lesser lights. CONVENIENT THEATRES. Wh le he was in Australia Mr. Kolker noticed that the builders of new theatres followed on the old horse-shoe lines. The new King's Theatre in Melbourne, for example, was after an old-fashioned model. The aim in Europe and in America, he concluded, is to give everybody in the building a, good chance lo see and hear everything. Therefore the auditoriums are wide, and the galleries are brought as nearly as possible up to the stage. Naturally this arrangement is as welcome to the performers as to the public. The artists feel at once that they are in touch with tho people, and do not have to strain their vocal mechanism and fray their nerves in making themselves heard in all parts of the house.