STAGE JOTTINGS.

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 73, 27 March 1920, Page 18

STAGE JOTTINGS.

I After a profitable Brisbane season with the Australian play, ""Possum Paddock," Miss Kate llownrde and her company are en route to New Zealand. i Mr. Piric Bush, who was with the "Yes, Uncle" company in New Zealand, returned to Sydney last week to join the English Company in which Miss Emma Temple and -Mrs. Robert Brough also appear. ■It is announced from London that "in March Mr. Robert Courtneidge sails for Australia for a. tour of all the big cities thero with 'The Man from Toronto.' life takes out a big company, headed by :Mr. George Tully." I A new play by Sir .lam« Karrie has [been written for the Russian dancer, I Karsavina. It is in one act, and in it ! Karsavina has a wordless part as a j Russian dancer, who, visiting professionally an aristocratic English household, 'dances her way into the affections of the son and heir. "Very alert and amusing, 4 ' is a description given of Mr. W. S. Percy's performance in the chief comedy role of an "Eastern-American comic opera, "Medorah," .roduced at the Alhambra, London. Miss Ada Reeve, recently at the Tivoli, appears as a serious romantic soprano heroine, but it is said she has little scope for bright work. Mr. John D. O'Hara. who fills the role jof Bill Jones in "Lightnin"." was for | eleven years associated with the Geo. M. Cohan productions, including the original productions of "Fifty Miles from Bos- , ton,'" '•Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford," j "Seven Keys to Baldpate," "Hit-the- | Trail Holiday,"' and other plays of equal renown. Mr. J. Castle Morris, formerly of the J. C. Williamson Co., now appearing with the Allah Wilkie Company, besides being a mummer of extensive experience, has had a remarkable career as a soldier of the Empire, including the Boer war, the Zulu rebellion, in Egypt, as troop leader in the brief campaign against the Senussi, and in the trenches in France. The New Zealand singer "Miss" Mabel Manson, whose son was killed in the great war, was the victim of a particularly mean theft in London recently. On returning home after singing at a concert Miss Manson found that the place had been visited by burglars, who bad stolen much prized souvenirs'of the son—three silver and two bronze medals he won at the R.A.M. After a successful season at the Wellington Grand Opera House, the Allan Wilkie Company left that city on Monday on a tour embracing Hastings, Napier, Waipawa, and Masterton. The company will open at Christchurch on April 3rd, with "The I.uck of the Navy," following which, they will present "The Rotters,'' and afterwards H. F. MaJtby's i famous demobilisation drama, "A Temporary Gentleman" will be staged for the first time in New Zealand. "London has tired of the bedroom farce," says a "Bulletin" paragraphist, "but New York is still tickled to death by it. Of the latest sample, The Girl in the Limousine,' the New York 'Herald' critic remarks: The authors seem to have searched their souls for double meanings, and when they exhausted them frankly called things by their right name. There were men in bed with other men's wives; men in bed with their fiancees; men under the bed; men behind bedroom screens; and men and women undressed as far as it is considered safe to go." "The Merchant of Venice" has been shut out of the schools of the State of New Jersey, as a result of the campaign initiated by the Jewish Anti-Defamation League, which contended that the childmind cannot distinguish between fact and fiction, and that, in conseqnence of the crafty and malicious character depicted in Shylock. Jewish scholars ate sneered at by their Gentile classmates. The Scotch Society of the same State is now demanding that the stain should be equally removed from the tartan of ,the Highlander, and that "Macbeth" 1 should also be forbidden in the children's I school books. | A stentorian burst of cheering was I heard from His Majesty's Theatre, Dunedin, one day last week, and investigation revealed'that the "Yes, Uncle" Company were signalising thus vociferously their regard and airection for their manager, Mr. John Farrell, to ■ whom and Mrs. Farrell they had just made a presentation of a solid silver tea:trav on the occasion of the fifteenth [anniversary of Mr. and Mrs. Farrell's 1 wedding. The whole of the 80 members' lof the company subscribed to the presentation, which was made by Miss I Marie Eaton. Mr. Farrell responded 'briefly and feelingly for himself and wife, nnd cheers were lustily given for the j popular couple on the'eve of their departure to take up residence in Auckland. ( When Frederick Ward opened his "Rajah of Shivapore" opera in Mcli bourne, writes "Call Boy" in the Sydney "Bulletin," he Btruck a vein of hard luck. For a start one of the leads was arrested on the first night for wifedesertion, and had to be bailed out before the curtain could rise. Next night one of the chorus men fell dead. A series of minor mishaps—all of which were carefully paragraphed—culminated iin an accident to Alice Bennetto, who ventured too close to a stage fight and ! got a nasty cut on the head. Ward sent a par. about this to the "Argus," which published it. But the sub-editor was getting tired of "Tl* Rajah's" vicissitudes, and sent this friendly warning: "This must be the last par. Up to now Claude McKay had the biscuit as the most inventive publicity man in the business, but not after this!" Curiously enough, things then suddenly ceased to I happen. Mr. Henri Yerbrtigghen returned to I Sydney from New Zealand impressed with the possibilities of the formation of a national school of mustc in the Do- ! minion, founded upon the "folk music 'of the Maoris. Everyone knows the i admirable work of Mr. Alfred Hill in ■this connection, and there is no doubt there is much effective material in this direction for composers to develop and i amplify. Some raee3 are endowed with !a better musical taste than others, and the Maoris appear to be among these favoured people. Probably it needs only the touch of a few men like Mr. Hill (says the "Sydney Daily Telegraph") to develop this native music into a great school. But as to its being national, it could only be so as regards the Maoris themselves. This music forms no part of the dominant people !of the Dominion.