THE REAL MELODRAMA.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 99, 2 June 1914, Page 6

THE REAL MELODRAMA.

A BACK-STREET THEATRE. Specially written for. TEE SUN. . There is melodrama and melodrama—there is, for instance, the "Lyons Mail,' ■ and '' The Girl who Took the Wrong Turning," "The Whip,?' -and. '' The Mock and the > Woman." . All things are a matter of degree, just as one sees eggs labelled in the «shop, " New Laid," " Fresh Eggs,'' .and •' Eggs.''

But, the ini.ddle ..course. i$ . always distasteful to . the.; extremist, and wp are most of u» extremists ill' this- necrotic age of > haste—we cannot all be' such moderates ; ss'. the curate who declared his v egg t<> < be. " excellent' inparts,'? and so/ for the; extremis there are only two degrees for enjoyment—-the best arid the worst.; This/is with particular reference to melodrama, of, course, not, eggs but it also includes books, pictures, statuary, pottery, and allied arts—the frills of life. As far as the essentials of life are concerned, we none of us can tolerate the; worst, though perforce we have to endure the mediocre.

BAD ART CAN BE ENJOYABLE. But bad art, really bad art, is enjoyable. even as good art is, though in a different way,.of course,; A young friend of mine in the lounging days used to say that, good books being rare, he preferred them to be richly, forcibly bad, and he was wont to give extravagant praise to articles written by his friends because, as he said, jfchey were so beautifully bad. That was when he was young. He is now married and does the market reports for a Melbourne paper. Possibly his friends appreciate l his praises more in these more subdued days. About melodrama, though—l . think, somehow, that a really bad and quintessential melodrama is more enjoyable than those highly-coloured scenic productions produced by the . J.C.W. firm, which serve as a background to the muAimersj and here, I know, I am in perfect agreement with that friend just mentioned, for in the days before we were twenty-one we frequented the positively worst melodramatic theatre in Sydney, and enjoyed it as I can never enjoy the most elaborate mountings of the producers in these years. THE HAYMABKET.

That theatre was a tent. It was pitched on a vacant allotment between tenements in that dingy, dilapidated quarter of Sydney known as the '' Haymarket," and the company that ran it, commanded by a picturesque, longhaired, slouch-hatted ex-buck jumper, was known by the grandiloquent title of 11 The Bohemian Dramatic Company.'' There was a stage, of course, and dressing rooms, also tents. The front stalls were the decayed trappings of some longsince dismantled theatre, the back stalls and the pit were plain benches, and the floor was tan. I remember that the entrance fee to the pit was twopence, and in lieu of twopence two beer bottles were counted as currency. The pit was usually well filled with the gamins of the neighbourhood, who gained their first taste for dramatic art in that enticing place. That was before the pictureshow became popular and cheap. Naturally we patronised the stalls, at sixpence a head I think, and because applause was demanded, and we felt mere hand-claps insufficient for the expression of our delirious appreciation, we brought empty lemonade bottles and rattled them with\ecstacy at every noble declaration of persecuted hero or heroine. Also we hooted the adventuress, and threw peanuts at the villain.. We gave free vent to our. elemental emotions. It was company —and the' dramas, oh, the dramas! "The Bushranger's Revenge" was a favourite, but '' The Kelly Gang,'' which it much resembled, ran it close. Still, for my part I preferred "The Gay Woman," a version of "Camille," with all the unnecessary things cut out and more meat put in. CAMILLE LOCALISED.

It went straight to my heart, which has always sought, simplicity, to see the Lady of the Gamelias transformed into a wronged girl, while her cast-off lover became a young, vicious, and victimising squatter, while that last fond lover who supported her until the final hacking cough was made a faithful young working man. It was very effective, and, after all, it was only translation, a reduction to a lower denomination. As I said, art is comparison, and two twos are equal to each other just as two tens are. But most I loved the version of '' The Lights

of London,'' when the wicked adventuress, whom we knew in the day as a comparatively innocuous waitress in a sixpenny eating-house, sat and smokeda cigarette just to prove her wickedness, while "the poor of London" trooped on in the persons of four small girls whose ambition was- to be "seriocomies" on the stage of the -National*! Amphitheatre.. I remember that these unnaturally wise infants, rouged and powdered, used to stalk out with proud consciousness- when the show was over, enjoying. the enwous admiration' of the back-street gamins gathered round to see the "actresses." BLOOD IN PLENTY.

"Oh! it was a great show. There was blood in plenty; the hero was invariably heroic though somewhat stiff and formal in hia manner, the heroine was indescribably virtuous, the adventuress Was wickedness personified, and. the villain—well, he was villainous. It is also pleasing to remember that the police were inviariably depicted as persons of cruel and , debased instincts—this the denizens of the Haymarket recognised as right and proper, since a class of men given to restraining natural inclinations could hardly be else. How the pit and the back stalls rejoieed, loudly, and how we rattled our lemonade, bottles, when Ned Kelly felled the trooper wiio had insulted sister Kate!'

•Then, when the last despicable deed had been foiled, and virtue stood effulgent from its cloud, we went behind-the wipd-flapped canvas of. the back scenes and offered to buy our favourite performers drinks. The only one that ever refused, Fas the Star—he took his antidote to life from a very small bottle, with a syringe. D. H.