ZEPPS AND THEATRES.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 69, 21 March 1916, Page 8

ZEPPS AND THEATRES.

■>Uv a '■ GERMANS BOASTFUL AKD . BRITISH CALM. DOMINION ARTIST AND AUTHOR. (From Our Lady Correspondent.), LONDON, February 3. According to this morning's papers, a 'German communique announces: —"In England the people were living happily and fcee from care in the midst of war, •while labourers were earning good money. Then the Zeppelins came out of tiie night, and taught the haughty people that the war can overtake them everywhere, and that it is bloody, terrible, and serious. England's industry to a considerable extent lies in ruins. England's own soil has beeu ploughed up by the mighty explosive shells of German air squadrons. * Over England herself during the night there was a fierce and hard-fought battle, a devastating airbattle, fought on a front of many miles, and it .was won by German airships. They returned proud and safe from the fierce battle. England" can now contemplate the ruined centres .of her industry and trade to which she has been brought by the wicked policy of her statesmen." This vaingloriousness strikes one living here in the centre of things as funny —if it were not for the thought of those who have suffered, a number we rejoice to see so small. When one i knows that the raid passed over the highly industrialised north of England, which is now merely,a network of towns, with lacunae of fields between, one stands amazed not that the bombs hit anything, but that indeed they managed so often to miss the town and hit the country. From private sources I hear that that is what happened "somewhere iii England." Bombs innumerable were dropped, near one very large urban centre, but they found their billet in the surrounding fields. London, at least, is quite calm. It was equally calm when it itself was the objective a week ago. when its defensive cordon was broken into at one point in Kent. And so little fear is there, that theatres are doing business as usual, while there is no cessation in meetings and work of immediate war interest. MISS BUCK MAN'S SUCCESS. New Zealand has been quite in the limelight dining the past week. Miss Rosina Buck-man's appearance in Dr. Ethel Smythe's new opera. "The Boatswain's Mate." placed her still higher in the esteem of the artistic public if that were possible. "To-night's achievement," wrote the "Manchester Guardian" critic, was a triumph for Miss Rosina Buckman." One of the leading critics told mc: "Miss Buckman is a tower of strength to the cast There is no one here who could have taken her part-as she did—for only the musician realises how tricky the music is. She has constantly to sing against the orchestra. It is simply marvellous." NEW ENGLISH OPERA. All the world was agog to hear this much-canvassed play by an Englishwoman who had compelled the admiration of the German musical world to such an extent that her works were freely produced there "before the war." The verdict is a mixed one. To my mind, the opera is neither fish, llcsh, nor good red herring." It is true that it was bailed as an English production. It gives, us English folk songs, but always the setting is more' Straussian than real English. The Wagnerian touch comes right to the surface vi the beginning of the second act. when ti duo"" of caterwauling cat* has its orchestral background of sensuous music! . The sceue is a pretty pub, where cherry trees and sunflowers bloom. Harry Bonn, the boatswain's mate, is hanging round the "pub," and has proposed to •Mrs. Waters, the buxom landlady, fiv times in the last fortnight. Mrs. Waters docs not want a man to take care of her,, which is perhaps why Miss Ethel Smyth wanted Mrs. Waters for the heroine of her opera? Still, even a man can have an idea, and Benn's ideas become brilliant with his third mug. In the first act we see him hatching his plan with, tbe wayfaring soldier, the great plan by which the soldier, heavily bribed, is to pretend lo be a and Bcnn is to pretend to be a hero and save the landlady. Wv sec and hear other things as well which Mr. Jacobs docs Jiot give us: Mrs. Waters, in a mood of tender; reflection, a mood which gives Miss Smyth a chance for some of her best music, including a lovely folk-song melody (" Lord Rcndal"); a capital scene of villagers who have had as much as is good for them, and make sunset hideous but entertaining with a fiddle, a banjo and a concertina. ■PLAY BY A NEW ZEALANDER. Then on Monday we bad the first night of Arthur Adams' " Miss Pretty and the Premier "—doubly interesting as being a New Zealand play with a new leading lady, Miss Kyrle Bellew, with a name familiar to theatre goers "down under." William Power (Arthur Bourchier), Herbert Dix (Norman Page), Ernest Bristed (H. Manning llayues). Edward Vyce (Herbert Bunston), Vernon Harrington (.Murray Carring'ton). 'Charles Lukin (Ray Raymond), Gregory (\V. S. Hartford), Patrick O'Reilly (Sydney T. Pease), Eflie Rim (Molly Terrains), Mabel Cusack (Ethel Carrington), Helen Pretty (Kyrle Bellew). Mr. Bourchier has the part that he loves—the strong, silent man who has no failings of the wine and woman brand. He can be blind even to the charms of his pretty typist, and bestow on her, not ribbons, but the (lowers of eloquence much more meet for a stump oration than mere musings in the solitude of his room in the House. I Miss Kyrle Bellew is the intriguing butterfly. Her dresses were of a diaphanous and clinging kind, more fitted ; for Monte Carlo than for the sober precincts of Parliament. She hovers around the great strong man, and* thjj j man of granite melts into plain di'din-J ary man. j Is it good for us to have such revelations? As the "Times" says:—"Mr. Bourchier is Bill, and if Australian Pre- : miers are not exactly like that we can only hope that, after seeing him, they soon will be. So dominant a personality |is bound to set the type in the end. Nature, as Mr. Whistler told us long ago, always comes round to copying art; i' intending' Australian Premiers will be well advised to copy Mr. Bourchier. Miss Kyrle Bellew is a lovely woman. She has charm, high spirits, a sense of fun. If there are obvious opportunities for comedy of the subtler sort in her part, which she seems to treat at present <i little too sketchily. that may be because of our old-world hankering after subtleties. After all, subtleties would probably, pass..unappreciated by bluff, self[taught, self-made, Labour Premier Bill."