STAGE JOTTINGS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIII, Issue 242, 11 October 1902, Page 2 (Supplement)

STAGE JOTTINGS.

"THE DEADHEAD."

There is no use blinking at the fact that the public disappointment with "A Chinese Honeymoon" was universal and severe. So successful was the advance booming, however, that the damning opinions of all those present at the opening performance did not for a moment jeopardise the success of the season, almost every decent seat in the house having been booked far ahead. There are musical comedies and musical comedies in this

world of trial and tribulation, and there is little enough in the majority of them, but once take away the two characters of Fi-Pi and Pineapple from "A Chinese Honeymoon," and there is absolutely nothing left. Subtract Tweedlepunch from "Floradora " and you yet have as remainder the double sextette, "Under the Sheltering Palms," and the whole score of lovely music. Bob the "Belle of New York" of Ichabod Bronson, and you yet have half-a-dozen good characters, but "A Chinese Honeymoon" well, well, it is dead now—dead forever so far as Auckland is concerned, so "De mortuis nil nisi bonum." Peace be on its ashes.

The fact that the performance of "Our Boys" by the Atom Club next week is in aid of the funds for the School for Maori Girls should help to swell the audience. It is a good many years since this most successful comedy was played in Auckland, and if the amateurs render even a moderate account of themselves, the performance should be well worth seeing. I am not perfectly certain whether "Charley's Aunt" eclipsed the record held for so many years for the longest run, but believe it just missed doing so.

Mr. O'Sullivan, in advance of the Pollards, arrived iv Auckland on Thursday afternoon to make arrangements for the season here, which opens to-night week, October IS. Mr. Tom. Pollard is now on the water eu >route from Sydney for this port, where he will arrive ou Sunday, He has secured one or two novelties for production in Zs'ew Zealand, which will be put into active rehearsal iustanter. The "Messenger Boy," with which the season will open, is said to be an extremely pretty musical comedy, and has been warmly praised down South.

May Beatty is certainly improved by her Australian training, and should have a rosy future before her if she recognises that a striking success in comic opera, docs not of necessity fit a person for other and more ambitious branches of the profession. The suggestion that she should train for grand opera is, frankly, absurd, and if she is the sensible little woman she used to be. Miss Beatty will recognise this. Not merely does she lack the vocal gifts to enable her to achieve even moderate success in such a role, but the demand for grand opera artists is not one-tenth part so great as that for actresses capable of playing lead or low comedy in the musical comedies and comic operas which appear to increase in popularity and number as the years go by.

There is now, says a London critic, Sir Henry Irving's own authority for the statement—so often made—that he will be seen some day in the character of Dante. It would have been hard upon lovers of the drama if this so i devoutly-wished consummation had not been arrived at. From the very moment, on the first night of Wills' "Faust," that he appeared as Mephistopheles, with the monk's cowl over his head, it was certain that Dante ought to be one of his impersonations. The thing was to put the poet into a play, and no doubt M. Sardou, with his fine sense of the effective, yhas done this excellently enough. Certainly, if he could not do it, nobody could.

Mr. Dix has a very strong draw in Callahan and Mack, who make their first appearance at the City Hall this evening. An Aucklander who saw these artists at the Theatre Royal in Wellington informs me they drew crowded houses nightly for about two weeks. They present, a. delightful little comedy, musical, clever and full of that "touch of nature that makes the whole world kin." There is no change in their programme throughout the whole of their engagement, and their turn can be witnessed again and again with the keenest enjoyment.

Edwin Geach tells a droll story of Sandow at Kale-oorUe. It was after the show, and the strong man had sought a supper-shop to feed the muscles over his diaphragm with something tasty. A bottle of champagne had been ordered, but it was a long time overdue. They were eating the sun-pcr and waiting for the wine. At last the Italian proprietor of the place came forward to explain the delay. He was very sorry. The wine had been brought, but the staff of the establishment had not yet succeeded in opening the bottle. "Bring me the bottle," said Sandow. with a benign smile. He. laid hold of the corkscrew, and the trouble ended in a second. Then it dawned noon the restaurateur that it was foolish to keep the- strongest man in the world waiting for his fizz because the other fellows couldn't draw the cork.

George Musgrove, in announcing that the arrangements of a big theatrical trust to do London, the provinces, Africa and Australasia, with nrobably a look in at America, are almost completed, only confirms a '.ong-es.tablishe.d Australian suspicion (says a writer in the "Bulletin"). A couple of yeaira back one of the brightest spirits in Australian manap-pment dec Inred his intention of getting out of theramens anickly as pocsihle, as he saw the com'ng- of a big corner that would knek the small men endways. He g-nt out, and into the comfortable seclusions of a pub. Courtneidg-p. the comedian, who was second fiddle to Lonnen in the latter's Gaiety collection, and has since been manag-ing for an English provincial syndicate, comes to Australia to fix things up at this end. Th« idea promises badly for the Australian mummer. Shows are to be originated at the Shaftesbury. London, then sent holus-bolus through all the houses held by the trust, nnd played by companies with long engagements, which mostly mean short, short wages. Let this kind of thing take hold, and what hope is there for the Australian drama that otherwise might have arrived?

Miss Alice Hollander is'now residing with a French family in the suburbs of Paris to study the language. The Sydney contralto has en-, gagements before her in London for the late autumn, and on November 18 is to sinu at an important concert iat Hull. Miss Hollander writes warmly of the kind attentions paid her by Miss Ada Crossley before she left London.

A Melbourne pressman, interviewing Sandow, questioned him as to the story of his having sold his body to a German University for £1000. "Dere is no trut' in der story," replied Eugene, and Mrs. Saudow remarked that the idea was horrible, adding, "How would you like to sell your body, Mr. Scribe?" "Well," responded the pressman, "if they'd give me £1000 they could have the soul thrown in."

A grim humorist writes as follows to a Sydney contemporary: — Tickets for admission to the SangalTisler murder trial fetched 2/G in the open market. These were admissionorders secured gratis by people with a certain amount of "pull" and turned by them into cash. This sort of thing is so common that the State might as well decide at once to charge admiission to murder trials and other sensational doings. The State wants the 2/G just as badly as anybody else, and it lias the best right to it, inasmuch as it provides the show —or a ■good part of it. It furnishes the building; the prisoner is caught hy its .arge-fodted policeman, and tried in its commodious and centrallysituated dock, before its commodious Judge, and away in the far distance its rope is being greased with its •grease ready for' the hanging. If it isn't entitled to the 2/6, who is?

A member of Wilson Barrett's Company, who was through New Zealand with that prince of self-advertisers, writes concerning the theft of his clothes and money from his bedroom at Maritzburg. "The sequel," he says, "is rather funny. The night after the robbery I determined to keep watch. The boarding-house is built on the bung-alow principle, and most of the bedrooms are on the ground floor, opening on to a verandah which runs round the inside of the building. My room commanded a view of the .back entrance to the house. After getting home from the theatre, I undressed, and waited patiently at my window, peering out into the darkness. At half-past one T saw a dark form come noiselessly along by the wall, from the cartwav at the side of the house. T felt that this was the man I was waiting for. He paused near my window, and then moved silently away round the corner to a dark passage, in which were the bathrooms. I opened my door noiselessly, and crept out in my bare feet, to the corner. It was so dark I could not see him at first, but at last I located him. and. with a rush and a yell, I was upon him. He yelled too, but T stuck to him, and the noise broutrht out several of the other boarders with candles . They rushed to my assistance, and we secured him. when we found I had captured a Kaffir policeman, who had been placed on special duty to watch the house. We had a hearty latiS-U and went back to bod T feeling that the role of Sherlock Holmes did not altogether suit me. I took h*>m out some tolKieco to compensate him for his fright, and then went to bed, leaving him chuckling outside, my window. These Kaffir policemen wear a uniform in the daytime, but at night they are arrayed in an overcoat and a soft, hats looking like tramps, so I couldn't see that he was a guardian of the peace. Having no boots ou, too. helped the idea that he was there to thieve. At that boardin"--house during* my stay T was repeatedly asked, 'Who* ca-up-ht the polVeman?' which T think uni'ind. considering t>e risk T ran of o-ettintr a knock on the head with a knohkerry, or a di<r with an assegai, which are the weapons these police-men ea.rrv. T have not been out bnrs-lm.r-hi.utinn- since, but look my door now, and sleep peacefull v."