STAGE JOTTINGS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 264, 7 November 1931, Page 2 (Supplement)

STAGE JOTTINGS.

H. A. Vacliell's "Quinney's" was produced by the Gregan McMahon Players at tlie King's Theatre, Melbourne, recently. The play is a delightful example of English literary comedy, its principal character being Joseph Quinney, a lovable, if testy, old merchant. This part is described as beina one of MeMahon's finest studies. action centres round the romance between Quinney's wayward daughter and a young man in his employ. The sudden development of Mrs. Quinney from an amenable, long-suffering wife to a woman fiercely fighting for her child, is a notable feature of the play. "Quinney's" has since been succeeded by Margaret Kennedy's "The Constant Nymph," produced for the first time in Melbourne.

_ Not for a period of 32 years have citizens approached a theatrical management in Australia for the purpose of enlisting co-operation in organising and forming a travelling grand opera company. And now the thing has come to pass—J. C. Williamson, Ltd., have been approached by Messrs. George Nassoor and _S. E. phatterton with s,uch an end in view, with the result that a company is now being organised with prospects of opening the season in either Melbourne or Sydney in March next. 4fter extended seasons there, the company will tour New Zealand. Mostly local talent will be encouraged, but it is realised that, if the company is to be the success it is hoped to make it, foreign talent will have to be employed as well. The chorus will be comprised of Australians only. The following operas will be performed: "Aida," "II Travatore," "liigoletto," "Un Ballo in Maschera," "Norma," "La Boheme," "Madame Butterfly," "La Tosca," "Cavalleria Rusticana," "I Pagliacci," "Carmen," "Faust," "Andrea Chenier," "Fedora," "Manon" and "Samson and Delilah." Mr. F. J. Tait, of J. C. Williamson, Ltd., believes that there are some very fine voices in Australia and New Zealand, and he is anxious to attract these, and so make the organisation a national one in the true sense of the term.

Returning to the United States after three years abroad, years which were probably the most mellow and satisfying of his brooding existence, Eugene O'Neill finds his native land both stimulating and interesting. In an interview with a New York cyitic, O'Neill said' that America was to him the land of vividness and gusto, the place in which to live and work if one was concerned at all with keeping in touch with the epic dramatic trends of chaotic modern civilisation. He believes that the American theatre, for all its frailties, provides the one living and growing drama in present day culture. The English stage is facile, but uncreativfe; the French is generally decadent and moribund, the German is concerned chiefly with tricks of production and the Russian is the victim of a narrow censorship, I

ruinous to genuine artistic • creation. From such a general indictment he would, to a certain extent, exclude the Irish. Yet even the embattled Abbey Theatre of Dublin seemed to be losing its fighting spirit. O'Neill's plays are enormously popular in Russia, though all references to the Deity in "Desire Under the Elms" have been abolished by the Soviet censor. O'Neill found that Russian acting was amazingly good. If their stage lived up to the level of their actors, it would be incomparable. He admits the importance to the Muscovite drama of the earnest, crusading zeal which goes into the Soviet writing for the theatre, and he sees the possibility of the emergence of a mighty zealot who might write great plays, not only despite, but also because of the Soviet insistence on the drama as a social tract. But this had not yet happened. QUEST FOR LIVING THEATRE.

When the announcement was made some months ago that Gordon Craig and C. B. Cochran were to joiij forces for a series of productions in London, everyone interested with the theatre rejoiced (states C. B. Purdom in a recent issue of "Everyman"). Were we at last to get the opportunity of seeing Gordon Craig on the stage? Time passed, there were rumours of difficulties, and then no more was said. Craig returned abroad. Any-, one, however, who has read Miss Enid Rose's recently published record of Gordon Craig's life and work will not be surprised that the Cochran-Craig proposal came to nothing. She has shown that what Craig has wanted all his life is a theatre, which he can use as a workshop. He has not wanted engagements as a producer, moving from company to company and from theatre to theatre, any more than he has wanted to make stage designs. The Cochran proposal was that Craig should have the use of a theatre controlled by Cochran for one or more productions. This was essentially impracticable for such a man as Craig. Had he been given a perfectly free hand, he might have brought off a production or two. But that would not have taken him far—he would have gone back to the wilderness just the same. Cochran was a business man (one of the best the theatre has known), and could not give Crai<? a free hand. So the whole idea fell through. Craig has never had a theatre, but his unswerving devotion to his ideal of it as a living thing has already borne fruit. His reputation has grown with the years. His influence on the European theatre to-day is greater than that of any other man, and reflections of his ideas are to be 6een on every stage which frees itself from the mereJv conventional. Even the famous Max Bernhardt owes more to him than he would care to admit. Meanwhile, until England has a national theatre, we must pin our faith on repertory enterprises to keep the theatre alive as something more than a financial speculation.