THE STAGE IN SYDNEY.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 242, 12 October 1929, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE STAGE IN SYDNEY.

PLAYS AND PLAYERS.

(By a Correspondent.)

SYDNEY, October 7. "Hold Everything" came to Her Majesty's last Saturday with a company good enough to hold audiences for a long season. It is a boxing comedy, with the main comedy divided up between Alfred Frith and Cecil Kellaway. Kellaway declares that he has the best'part that has fallen to his lot since he came to Australia from South Africa many years ago, and he is satisfied. That says a whole lot for the part, as we all know Kellaway is a whale for work. A new soubrette, Mary Lawson, has youth- and zip, and should have a following in no time. Patricia—we have to call her Patricia now that she is a leading lady and not just a star dancer—Patricia'Kendall has the part Mamie Watson opened in in London, and does well in it, but better in her dances still, and her brother Terry—we are thinking of calling him Terence now —has ihe leading juvenile part of the boxer, which Owen Nares, London's beauty actor, did on the other side. Elsie Keene, who came here for Fullers, has a good part, and Tui Black has a bit. Pop Cory and Frank Leighton are amongst the " support."

" Journey's End" will go to New Zealand before it comes to Sydney, as Leo Carrillo really has "clicked" with " Lombardi, Ltd.," and will stay at the Criterion as long as Sydney wants to see him. This is the biggest success_in personal stars, as well as in "legitimate " play that the J. C. Williamson management have had for many moons. Leo Carrillo is also very good as a social light, and is ready and apt in his speeches' at all sorts of clubs, male or female, fetes, cabarets, and such like entertainments. The fact is he is a star, and is used to being a star, and knows how to talk and behave like one, and the wine of social and stage success does not go to his head. He has a sense of humour through everything.

So. in the meantime you are to nave the world's best play, "Journey's End," which title has been bestowed upon it by seeral nations and three continents. In the cast is "Young Woodley" Shaw, who plays the boy in the trenches —the human spoil of war.

It was sad to see the last nights of the old Tivoli, even'though the programmes have not been.up to standard of late. The public grew aware of this and stayed away. You cannot deceive the public for long in these matters, no matter what other excuses for faihire theatrical managements may put , forward. There has been no outstanding figure there for several months, and the support of headliners has been getting poorer and poorer. But a problem arises over the future of the Tivoli. The J. C. Williamson firm and their partners on vaudeville had a conditional lease for ten years, and though there is talk of the theatre being condemned, it would have been possible to run Out this lease. Now it will lapse, and there will be great difficulty ' for anyone else to get another. Hugh D. Macintosh, the lessee, now on his way out from England, will be faced with, a puzzle as to what to do next. No doubt it will be to his interest and all those financially concerned, to convert the old place into shops, as the land is so well placed as a shopping centre, but, on the other hand, there has been a slump in new shopping centres lately, owing to the general depression, and the owners may hesitate to spend a great deal of money on converting old lamps into new.

Allan Wilkie will commence a season of old English comedies at the Newtown Majestic on October 19, the first to be "The School for Scandal." His business manager is trying to persuade him to play "The Sign of the Cross," but the prospect is not too favourable, as Wilkie is standardised on Shakespeare, and the unutterable rubbish that goes to make up the old "Sign" melodrama is almost sure to be anathema to his soul. But it is a good paying proposition.

Gus Bluett is going to be the star in the second musical comedy company going to Perth and the small towns ot Western Australia to play the pieces m which he figured in excellent parts. The Girl Friend" and "Hit the Deck" will be among them. "Rose Marie" is going to be revived in Melbourne after "Show Boat, and that is why you have not got Marie Bremner in the leading part of The Desert Song" in New Zealand. She has been kept back for it, having played it before. Al Fishei-, who came here originally to produce the ballets for the Empire Theatre in "Sunny" and other pieces, and afterwards did the work for "Rio Rita," is now permanently engaged by J. C. Williamson to do this work for them. "Hold Everything" is his first piece, and he has stuck to the new school of tap dancing. The dexterity of the ballet girls in these is astonishing and worthy of all praise, but the class of dancing is rather noisy and not graceful like the old style. Minnie Hooper is out of the work for the present, and her old girls intend to present,her with a suitable au revoir gift. She will still retain her dancing classes in Sydney. Leo Gordon is transferring his company to the Palace for the last nights of his Sydney season, and when "It Pays To Advertise" has run its span he will go down to Melbourne to present this and "Brewster's Millions" and "The Squeaker" in that city. After he goes the Palace will be turned into a vaudeville house with a young woman called "Jerry" and Her Baby Grands. There will be four other young ladies with four other baby grand pianos to help her, and the programme will be enlarged by other artists, not yet named. It is not proposed to turn the Palace into a music hall for ever, but with the Tivoli now out of the picture any engagements that were booked will have to be run out there. Unfortunately for the new soubrette of "Hold Everything," Mary Lawson, all her thunder has already been stolen by Lorma Helms, and both young women were inspired by Emma Haig, who made "The Girl Friend" the big success it was in London. Eccentric comedy should be ingrained and not imitated, and when these youngsters try to model themselves on someone who has the natural burlesque vein, the result is not too successful. Mary Lawson is pretty, she can dance, she can make a noise that passes for singing, and if she had a comedy medium of her own she would be quite an attractive artist. As it is one feels she is the second carbon copy of a very good original. Maisie Gay said some hard things about Australia and the J. C. Williamson management when she struck Londonj but it is an inflexible rule in the theatrical profession that an artist is .only worth a large salary if he or she can draw an approximately large audience to watch him or her earn it. Maisie Gay could not do that here, and "This Year of Grace" failed. She objected to the management changing their minds seven times in two days. She was lucky. Sometimes they do that in two hours. Maisie Gay's husband, Mr. Harris, came out here some years ago to produce, and the management did not consider his standard was theirs, so he was sent back. When he came the second time, also to produce, it is rumoured that the management were in ignorance of him being the same Mr. Harris. They took him on trust as Maisie Gay's husband. However, he did not produce, though he drew his salary. It certainly looks as though there were things to be said on both sides of this Gay question, but the managements are not usually the ones to speak for publication.