STAGE JOTTINGS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 299, 16 December 1911, Page 14

STAGE JOTTINGS.

HIS MAJESTY'S THEATRE. Dec. 18 to Dec 23—"The Chocolate Soldier." Dec. 25 to 29—"The Speckled Band" Co. Dec 80 to Jan. 13— H. B. Irving Co. OPERA HOUSE. Puller's Vaudeville. PICTURED King's Theatre. Royal Albert Hall. Lyric Theatre. Newton Picture Palace (contlnuonajj Queen's Theatre (continuous). Adelpbi Theatre —Newmarket. The Plinuner-Denniston Company have scored another distinct success in "Inconstant George," which was staged in Brisbane a fortnight ago. All the papers seem to agree that the performance is one of the most brilliant given since the palmy days of the Brough Company, and anticipate that the young firm must do well out of it The acting honours fall to Mr. Harry Plimmer as the inconstant one, and to Miss Lizette Parkes, who scored a big hit as Mkheline. Other good performances are given by Mr. Denniston, Mrs. Brough, Miss Beatrice Day, Miss Valentino Sidney, and Mr. Harry Sweeney. Following upon "Lovers Lane" and "Nobody's Daughter," this company appears to be finding it difficult to go wrong.

Admirers of George Bernard Shaw will | perhaps be puzzled by the musical ver- j sion of lis brilliant comedy "Arms and I the Man." "The Chocolate Soldier," the opera by Oscar Straus, to be presented here on Monday night by J. C. Williamson's New English Comic Opera Company, retains a great deal of original comedy. There is an unusual amount of concerted music There are two big set solog, both for tho soprano, one of which, "My Hero," has a waltz melody that i« irresistibly fascinating. This leading theme appears in a love ballad for the heroine "Nadina" in the first act, and in the second and third acts as a chorus, its parting strains being heard at the final fall of the curtain. There are many other exuberant and artistic melodies. The finale of the first scene proves in this way rich in musical interest, and the sextet in the second act is also typical of tho composer's versatile gifts; while the finale to this act, with its brisk dance for the gay company, reminds one of the fete scene in "The Merry Widow." An interesting letter was reveived in Melbourne during the week from Misr. Lily Brayton. which included the following: "We played the first courtyard scene out of "Kismet' at the matinee in aid of the Liberte disaster fund. It was a most interesting matinee, the leadiing London theatrical and music hall artists contributing to th*>. programme. Sir Herbert Tree announced from the stage that the sum of £95)0 had been realised. Madame Rejane camp, in to see 'Kismet,' and was most enthusiastic about the production. She asked us if it would be possible to take it over to Paris to play it at her theatre. This, of course, is impossible, in view of our Australian season, but it was nice to receive such a compliment frrnn a great »Tti«t. We are giving a big professional matinee of TCismct' next Monday, and the applications we have had for spats are siTrpl" Oerald du Maurier. Irene Vanbrugh, JLillnh McCarthy. Weedon Groasrrrith, I Robert Lorain©. Ellis Jeffreys. Madame Ada Crossley, Madame Kirkby Limn, John Coates. and all the wdl-lcnown actors and actresses playing at the West Fnr 1 ! theatres are coming, also Mrs. John Billington and Kate Crowe, who are two of the oldest well-known actresses in London."

Prominent actresses on the American stage have devoted to them a great deal of publicity, with the result that they loom large in the public eye. Not infrequently it happens that they thereby attract the undesirable attention of cranks, lunatics, and other unpleasant people. A peculiar experience that befel her in New York recently is related by Hilda Spong, who is to star in ' Every Woman" at Melbourne Theatre Royal on the 16th. She received a letter in which it was stated that the writer was a man of independent mans, and had fallen in love with her. Ho would call upon her in due course, and make hor a proposal of marriage. Miss Spong dismissed the matter from her mind as a hoax or a joke. But one afternoon a man called upon her, stated that he was the writer of the letter, and taking a revolver from his pocket, expressed his intention of "killing somebody." lie mentioned in a cacraal way that lOOdol might make him change bis mind. Miss Spong was alarmed, thinking that she had to deal with ft lunatic, and on' the pretence of going to obtain the money, rang up for the police. The man was arrested, and was identified as a notorioiu blackmailer, who. pretending to be a lunatic, frightened actresses and other women into givins him money. He particularly devoted his attention to prominent actresses. The nffair caused something of a at the time. Ts Mme. Si mono the real raeeessor of Mme. Sarah Bernhardt on the Paris stece? is a question which is making quite n controversy in New York. The Freneh actress is playing there in "The Thi»f." and her intense emotionalism is rather too muoh for the critics. Some th'nk her art is out-of-date, and that Nflw York has little to learn from the present French leading actors and actresses.

j "The Girl Who Lost Her Honeymoon," |r one-act sketch, adapted from the German bv Payne Nuna, with music by Orlando Powell, was presented at the T"iTwbnry Park Theatre, London, on November <5, by Arthur Roberts and company. Mr. Roberts fsav* "The St»«e." November 2) reached the borderland of trouble when at Hull He wap railed upon by the local chief constable and a member of the Watch Committee, who informed him that obiertkm ha-rt been taken to a line in his sketch. Mr. Roberts denied that there was anything wrong, and declined to omit the expression (o whieh obiection had been taken. Under engagement to J. C. Williamson, limited, a number of performers from England arrived by the Osterley in Mel--1 bourne last week. The majority have hern brought out for the "Sinbad the Sailor" panto., including Pip Powell, who will be the Dome: Retford and Winehes.ter. comedy team; the Slecdtes. speciality ' artists, whose performance of "The Mysterious Hotel" has been one of the biggest successes at the music halls in Tendon; I Drew and Alders, who have a comedy I act. On hoard! the Ostrrley also was Mr. I Oeorgft Miller, an English comedian, who is to appear in the production of "Every Woman" at the Theatre Royal. Melbourne. Who As the highest-paid actor in the •world? The question is not an easy one to answer, but there can be very few stage celebrities commanding so high a salary as M. Le Bargy, who has just signed a- contract with the Porte Saint Martin Theatre at a salary of £SOOO a year.- pins 25 per cent of the receipts. He also has a five yeaTs' engacment to L appear in various parts of the world, and ■ will be paid an average of £IO,OOO a year for thai period.

.The gaiety of London is scarcely being enhanced by some of the entertainments from the Continent now being presented at our music-halls, eays the "Pall Mall Gazette." For instance, on one very popular stage a Viennese danseuse is showing how a sort of hystero-epileptic danced a furious dance round the dead body of her lover; and on another we are being shown, in a series of tableaux vivants, the career of a Queen of the Apaches and her brutal lover, ending up with the murder of the pair by a far from charming Marquis at whose ruin they have been conspiring. We are told. that the one exhibition was "the rage of Viieima," and thai the other is "a realisation of the unconventional ideals of the new impressionists of the Bavarian school." It seems a pity to hove deprived either Vienna or Munich of such seemingly popular attractions for the sate of appealing to the morbid tastes of the few Londoners who really enjoy such things.—Exchange. The difficulty' Some people have of getting down to real life is curiously illustrated in a note Mr. W. S. Percy, the president of the divorce court in "The Girl in the Train," received during the

week. The comedian's correspondent inI formed him of domestic differences. She I hod lost trust in her husband, and was > in a state of intense mental perturbation as to whether she was justified in her suspicions. Like Yana, all that she knew was that she had loved him (her husband, of course) well. The girl in the case had 'been careening about with her husband in taxi -.be. The agitated wife did not want to make the same mistake as the jealous wife in the mus-.cal comedy. It was all so perplexing, and she would be glad of Mr. Percy's counsel in the matter. There was some referi ence in tho note to "legal technicalities" I requiring explanation. In a note from i Chambers—that is, from his dressingroom—Mr. Percy replied that he had made it a strict rule of personal conduct never to interfere where husband and I wife were concerned. He learned his les- • son many years ago, trying to separate what turned out to be a loving couple in Auckland. He did not know the depth of their affection, for they were Bghting in the street. He tripped the man up, |as he wasn't in his fighting class in j weight, and before he could run the J woman measured him with this one eye that was still open, though slowly closing, and swung a heavy left on to his right temple. The comedian said he saw more stars than ever brightened the theatrical firmament. He was eventually rescued by a policeman. Since then hs his performed judicial acts only on the stage. •'You do not think Hamlet was mid?" Mr. H. B. Irving was asked. "No," he replied, "but he feigned madness. Shakespeare was far too good an artist to make him really mad. He knew pco»)e ■would not stand a play about a lunatic. ; Once an audience thought Hamlet was I mad tb*y would leave the theatre. Peoi pie do not like mental or physical d»e,ease exhibited on the stage. That is one ■of the reasons why 'King Lear,' fine as it is, is never a pepoktr play. The story | of the mad old man is almost too pain- | ful. It is dreary, and nowadays andi- ! Circes do not care for what-is dreary. j Thoy do not mind what is sad, and bav- ; ic£ their feelings moved to sympathy. ■ They do not object to tears of sympathy lor pity, but do not like dreary, hopefeae I themes. Sad as the end of "Hamlet' is, I there is something ennobling about the j whole tragedy. A certain section of ' modern playwrights resent the fact that I thear plays are not more successful. | Sometimes the simple reason is that aiidionres, taken as a whole, do not want f dr.ib plays. People do not desire to go and sec a reproduction of their actual j lives. There is quite enough trouble and | dreariness in their every-day lot, and

| they do not want to sec almost photoj graphic reproductions of thoir own con- | ditions on the stage. They go to ths theatre to get out of themselves, and to ! be lifted into another world of thoiight | and feeling. We actor-managers are blamed for not making a success of these, pieces. We say 'they are very clever and very good, but the people will not come to sec them.' After all, the theatre has to be kept open. It is no use trying to force on the public something it does not want." Few men lived such a varied life as did Mr. Harold Kyrle Bellew, who di<-d suddenly a few weeks ago in Salt Lake City—merchant, seaman, shiphroker, lecturer, waxwork showman, gold digger, journalist, and actor. Born at Prescot, Lancashire, in 1855, the son of the Rev. T. C. M. Bellew, the celebrated preacher, his first adventure was in India in 1857, the rear of the Mutiny, when lib) father was a chaplain at CaVrjtta. When the Mutiny broke out the B«iTlews were,at a i hill station near Darjeelinsr. from which they were rescued by British troops. But many more adventures were to bef'ill Mr. Bellew before he became the ideal stape-lovcr and the fashionable favourite of the London stage. He was originally intended for the Army, but, to use his own words, he "somehow drifted on board the training ship Conway." After some yeare of a sailor's life, during which he had many exciting advent-nres, he went to Australia, where he tried gold-dig-ping, lecturing, and journalism. Of his ups and downs in those days he wrote: "T was sometimes working p.s a miner, sometimes on a station, often a sundowner begging my way from station to station, bushing, looking after sheep, a hewer of wood, and a drawer ol water. One day luck came. I painted a big white lipn for a public-house sign and got £lO for it; then ensued an

epidemic of white lions, and for a time I lived on the fat of the land." Mr. BcUew worked his way back to Englacd as third mate, and landed in London wRh £S in his pocket. The day after ' his arrival he saw an advertisement in ; which Mr. Charles Barrington wanted a lig-ht comedian to act with Miss Helen Barry in "Clancarty." He went to the ! Adelphi Theatre, cutting off the pilt i buttons of his uniform and replacing them with plain ones. Mr. Bsrrington did not ask him jf he had been on the stage. "Where have you come from?" he inquired. "Australia," was the reply. | "Pretty hard work there, isn't it? Change 1 their bill pretty often? Lota of experience, eh?" queried Mr. Barrington. j "Heaps; every kind," said Mr. Beltew • with perfect truth. He was engaged at a 1 salary of £2 a week, and ten days later he begnn his stage career as Lord Woodj stock in "Clancarty" at Brighton. He I soon leaped into fame as a romantic ! actor, as ho had passion, intensity, and . picturesqueness to help him in giving life :to the heroes of Shakesoeare, Lytton, ■ Sheridan, and Dumas. Mr. Bellcw's association with Mrs. Brown Potter, for i which he will be chiefly remembered, be- • gan at the Gaiety Theatre in 1887 in j "Civil War." Later they went into part- ! nership and toured twice all over the > ' world. The American stage has seen > much more of Mr. Bellew than the Engr | lish for many years pas"t. i 1 The Christmns pantomime for Mclt; bourne will be "Red Riding Hood." prei se-nted by Mr. William Anderson's Juvet, nile Company, which has just finished a successful tour in N"ew South 'Wales. ) The members of the company arrived in 1 Melbourne last week, and are about to i 1 commence rehearsing. Jk THE DEADHEAD.