STAGE JOTTINGS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 65, 16 March 1907, Page 10

STAGE JOTTINGS.

FORTHCOMING ENGAGEMENTS. HIS MAJESTY'S THEATRE. March 11 to 23 — Edison's Popular Pictures and Bessie Sutton March 25 to 30 — Besses o' th' Barn ' Band April 1 to May 4 — Mr Chas. Hodoway and Company May 6 to 24.-— Mr Andrew Mack and Mr J. C. Williamson's Company May 25 to June 15 — Mr William Anderson June 24 t- July 13 — Mr Julius Knight and Company (Mr Williamson) July do to 20 — Mr Fred. Shipman OPERA HOUSE. ~* Till further notice — Fuller"s Entertainers After Mr. George Lauri's recent breakdown, as many Aucklanders already know, the comedian hired a fishing-boat and its crew and spent a month in knocking about the Gulf with headquarters at Ruth's Island, out in the sun and air all day long, and enjoying himself hugely with hook and line. "The result is, I bear, a perfectly restored constitution which will enable him to once more take up his work when the Royal Cornie Opera Company returns to Adelaide.

Paul Cinquevalli, who is at present on the Continent, will return to America for a forty weeks' season shortly, and may then revisit Australia.

La Milo is showing in the English provinces with a success quite equal to that of her London performances. At tho Nottingham Empire she made a sensation with her artistic poses.

. To transfer the pantomime from Melbourne to Sydney, Mr. J. C. Williamson has engaged a special train, which will leave immediately after the final performance of "Mother Goose" with the biggest company on board that has ever travelled between the two capitals, to say nothing of the complete scenery for the production.

It is a dangerous thing to offend a women's suffragist in England. The "angel" of ''Little Red Riding Hood," this year's pantomime at Terry's Theatre, London, is an ardent suffragist, and, after the play had been running a week, took exception to some of the topical allusions, threatening to close the theatre if they were not cut out. Mr. Fred. Storey, whom New Zealanders will remember as the dancer of the first Gaiety Company, is the leading comedian, and promptly called a meeting of the cast, with the result that they formed a syndicate to continue the pantomime on communistic lines.

The Meynell-Gunn Company open a season in the Invercargill Theatre on March 24. That fine actor Harcourt Beatty, last round here with the Nellie Stewart Company, is a member of the company, and in "The Midnight Wedding" takes the part of Paul Valman— a character which receives a splendid representation at his hands. The. company are at present playing iv Adelaide.

Mr. Julius Knight's new leading lady, Miss Elbert Orton. is an American by birth and an Englishwoman in her stage training (writes my Australian correspondent. She hails from the Southern States, and in her appearance and demeanour suggests the graceful, softvoiced woman of old Virginia. Her early years were spent in the South, with occasional trips to New York, where I she fed her hunger for the stage on a round of play-going, until at the age of fifteen she went travelling all over' Europe. She gained her first dramatic experience as an amateur with Sergeant's School of Acting, but her first professional efforts were made with Mr. F. R Benson's Shakespearian Company, which she joined on the advice of Miss Genevieve Ward. While thus occupied she gained a first-class experience on tour in all the big Shakespearian characters, varying her repertoire with modern characterisations, and except for brief intervals with Mr. Cyril Maud and Mrs. Edward Compton, she remained with Mr. Benson until she came out here.

Miss Louise Douglas, daughter of a British naval officer, the cousin of the Duke of Hamilton, has just died at Omaha (U.S.A.), as the result of swallowing a live chameleon as a turn in a local "polite vaudeville" show. The girl who chose this unique method of making a living was found after her death to be the heiress to a largo fortune.

•'•'Tom Moore*' has been chosen for Mr. Andrew Mack's opening piece in Wellington at Easter time. The popular Irish singing comedian's tour of Australasia will last a fvjl six months, the fir3t two and a-half of which will be spent in New Zealand.

The first act of "L'Aiglon,"' the fourth of "Leah Kleschna" and "Sunday," and the balcony scene from "Romeo and Juliet," made the programme for Miss Tittell Br line's farewell to Sydney on March 1. The company will remain in Tasmania until the 11th inst., at Bendigo untd the 19th, and at Ballarat for the 20th and 21st, returning to Melbourne for their farewell season there, beginning at Her Majesty's Theatre in "Parsifal" on the 23rd instant.

Mr. Harry Quealy, who wa*s one of the principal comedians with the Pollards, has now entered the ranks of vaudeville, and, with his wife, is doing sketch turns at Wm. Anderson's Wonderland City.

Mr. Hall Caine's 16-year-old son is now playing two small adult parts in his father's melodrama, "The Bondman," at the London Adelphi. His work is favourably criticised, but (says a gentle humourist) it is not expected that he will ever be as great an actor as his father is a writer.

Among the titles of the 400 and odd plays, sketches, and revivals produced in the L T nited Kingdom last year, there was an agreeable falling off in the sensational naming which gave us about two years ago "The Ugliest Woman on Earth." Yet this type of lurid drama was by no means unrepresented among the titles which went to swell the records of the Lord Chamberlain's office, as "The Queen of Villainy," "Hands of Sin," and "The Hour of Her Triumph" will testify. But the 1906- list also in-

eludes "The Girl Who Took the Wrong Turning," and "A Warning to Women." There are also "Her Love for Him," "Her Love Against the World," "The Love that Women Desire," "Lured to London," "Her Marriage Vow," '-The Marriage Trap," "The Miserable Marriage," "The Unwedded Wife," "She Stands Alone," "Her Lost Self," "Her Nameless Child," and "No Marriage Bells for Her." Mr. George Musgrove contradicts the statement by New Zealand papers that there seems no chance of his Grand Opera Company visiting New Zealand. This, he says, is quite an error, as arrangements were completed months ago for the big company to visit this colony, and it will perform in Christchurch from September 10 to September 23. The company, he adds, is not the German Opera Company, as it has been wrongly described, but is known as the Musgrove Royal Grand Opera Company. In addition to German operas, it will also produce Italian and French works, and with the exception of Wagner's works, all the operas will be sung in English. ' THE DEADHEAD.