THE STAGE IN SYDNEY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 2, 3 January 1931, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE STAGE IN SYDNEY.

PLAYS AND PLAYERS.

(By a Correspondent.)

SYDNEY, December 26. New Zealand will not see Edith. Taliaferro. She has gone.home to America. Her company will be kept together to play . "The First Mrs. ■ Eraser" in Melbourne, with Ethel Morrison and Mary MacGregor in the leads. Marie Tempest made a huge success of this in London. Frank Harvey will arrive about the middle of January, and will probably reopen the Theatre Royal here with "On the Spot." He will also do Edgar Wallace's thriller, "The Calendar." Margaret Bannerman was going to play this during her Australian season, but as that closed a trifle abruptly, she did not manage to fit it in. She did, however, play it in London with success. Edgar Wallace is a friend of hers, and had her house while she was out here. "Beauty and the Beast," is for the Grand Opera House, with Stiify Phillips and his "Merry Maids and Men" cast for the main characters. Dorothy Dewar is to be the Principal Boy. Angela Parselles, who won one of the Andrew McCunn school prizes for singing, is the Fairy Queen, and "Stiffy" is the comedy. Willie Cass will be the Dame. Marie Marlow, the small daughter of George Marlow, is playing an important role this year. Norman Wister has been given the main juvenile lead in "Uncle Tom's Cabin" in Melbourne. You last heard of him in "Baby Cyclone,' 5 and those other brisk comedies which the Fullers did in New Zealand something under a year ago. Since then he has been playing prominent parts with the Melbourne Repertory Company, run by Gregan MacMahon. "Turned Up" is the Christmas production at Her Majesty's here. Leo Franklyn has the leading part of. Carraway Bones, a. part played by the late Robert Brough, in the comedy version many years ago. Franklyn's father-in-law, a well-known English actor named Rigby, put the play into a musical version, and Franklyn played it in London before coming out to Australia. It is in the nature of a stop gap. Elsie Prince, Bertha Riccardo, Phil Smith, Cecil Kellaway and Bobby Gordon (late of Clem Dawe's Company) are entrusted with the principal parts. Gus Bluett went into St. Vincent's Private Hospital during the week for a complete rest, and will stay for a week or so and then so to the Blue Mountains with his sister in his car for a real holiday. He has been suffering from the effects of his fall off the shoulders of the supposed German acrobats in "Sons o' Gu'ns," and has had a severe touch of rheumatoid arthritis, but he would insist on going on playing instead of resting at the time, and now he is feeling the bad effects. He will have about six weeks holiday, and then will be ready to rejoin the company for the Melbourne production of "Sons o' Guns.''

iiiiiiiiiiiciiiiiintiiiiaiiiimiiiiiaiiiiiiuiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiqiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiii "The House That Jack Built" is Melbourne's pantomime offering, and the cast is a surprise. Sadie Gale is to be Principal Boy, and her husband, Roy Rene, is the chief comedian. Arthur Stigant will be Dame, and a young amateur will be Principal Girl. Three new people are named i'n the cables as coming out for J. C. Williamson, Ltd., for the forthcoming Gilbert and Sullivan season. They are Gregory Stroud, Ivan Menzies, and Dorothy Gill. Marie Bremner is busily studying the leads, and that is why she did not go to New Zealand with "The New Moo'n." "Eliza Comes to Stay," done here for the very first time professionally, introduces Agnes Doyle as the star in the

name part. She is a cute little soul in cute parts, but scarcely sustains the lovely young lady end of the piece, her voice not lending itself to sympathetic parts. Campbell Copelin is the young man with whom Eliza comes to stay. Not built in the romantic juvenile mould, this young actor nevertheless manages to adapt himself to most of the parts he is asked to act in this repertory-like company and does well in them all. He also plays a crook with a very serious complex in the curtain raiser, "In Port." Again an outstanding performance is given by Frank Bradley in "Eliza." His experience of the stage is so thorough-going that he make a star part of - each he undertakes. Valuable assistance is given by Harvey Adams, Katie Towers and not so' valuable by Donalda Warne as a dashing -young actress,, Donalda doesn't dash.

The pantomime, "Puss In Boots," is expected to have a run of about six weeks at the St. James'. Jennie Benson will be principal boy, a role she has undertaken a great many times in London and the. English provinces. Mabel Gibson will bo an ideal principal girl match for her; in fairness. Bertie Wright has now joined the company for a fat comedy part. Ernest C. Rolls, producer and entrepreneur, is concentrating a great deal on child artists for the pantomime and the Chrissie lloyal Wonders, headed by Jackie Clarke, whom you had in New Zealand a short time ago, is spoken of as' one of the marvels of the piece. Chrissie lloyal is arranging the ballets and the ensembles, assisted by Roy McDonnel, who will also be one of the solo and exhibition dancers. Rita Dolores will be his partner in the latter.

Vaudeville is creeping back and taking root at the picture houses. The State Theatre management are importing a company of Blue Streak Arabs (it sounds like some sort of tinned salmon, doesn't it?) to perform at their presentations. I met a gentle old person in Jack Musgrove's office the other day who told me he played Egyptian music on a special instrument. His soft personality was so winning that I was glad to hear that the management had engaged him and were expecting a great success with him, the turn being somewhat unique. Gladys Moncrieff is going strong at the State. The Y.L.A. Band also made a hit there. A sort of semigrand opera quartet is operating at the Capitol and also on their programme is a dancing duet, hot from America, called Brock and Thompson. j

Her Majesty's is shut for a week pending the Christmas production of "Turned Up." The week before Christmas is always the worst in the whole theatrical year, and no doubt the artists are glad enough of a semi rest, though, as they have to keep rehearsing a good deal in the daytime, it isn't as good as it sounds.

You are shortly to have the Rayner Sisters and their T.O.Y. Theatre movement moving through the faire isles. Joan and Betty Rayner are "Greenleaf Theatre" trainees, if you know what I mean. There is such a theatre in Chelsea, London, and these girls were members of it before coming back here. I understand they originally came from New Zealand, but would not be sure about that. Their efforts here have been most praiseworthy. They took a store room near the quay in Sydney and did it up so effectively that it is a most restful and pleasant place in which to listen to the medley of folk songs, old world plays, sketches and community singing that they present. The company consists of about five or six members, never more, and sometimes less. The name means the Theatre of Youth, and adapts itself well to the letters T.O.Y. Mrs. Rayner plays the spinet behind a curtain for the players, and well it sounds until the incongruity of "God Save" is turned on at the close of the programme. They paint the scenery—very sketchy but quite adequate, themselves, make all their own stage clothes and most of their "props," and in fact spend their entire lives in the service of the little T.O.Y. movement. In the summer they take a caravan and tour the country, giving the plays and sketches out of doors and living in their caravan. They are in it now at Manly, having given up house, preparatory to shifting camp altogether. On the evening of their first performance of their new Christmas programme, Miss Betty announced that they were up-staking and away —first to Melbourne and Adelaide and then to New Zealand, and after that to U.S.A. It will be years before they come back here—if ever.

A law suit was averted between J. C. Williamson, Ltd., and the Actors' Federation lately over reduction of salaries of chorus men and girls. Reductions were made on a schedule presented to the federation but not passed by them, it is alleged, and then the federation took the matter up and issued a writ. The matter was settled out of court, J. C. W.'s agreeing to part up with the round sum the federation asked to settle what would have been claims if the case had gone to court. Adjustments of salaries must come soon, because the theatrical firms cannot bear the high figures of the present scheme and carry on.