STAGE JOTTINGS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 209, 3 September 1932, Page 2 (Supplement)

STAGE JOTTINGS.

A play which it is believed has never been staged in New Zealand will be presented in the Old Grammar School Theatre, Symonds Street, for three consecutive nights, commencing Thursday, September 15. The piece is Anton Tchehov's serio-comic romance of old Russia, "The Cherry Orchard." It will be staged by the Workers' Educational Association, and the producer is Mr. Ernest Blair.- •

At the conclusion of the "Blue Roses" season at His Majesty's Theatre next • Tuesday night, the company will present a four-night season of the musical comedy "Follow Through. , ' Headed by Madge Elliott and Cyril Ritchard, the company includes Cecil Kellaway, Leo Franklyn, Frank Leighton, Dulcie Davenport, Alathea Siddons, Elved Jay, Jean Duncan, Arthur Cornell, Winnie Tate, Mona Zeppel and other singers and dancers.

Dr. Merton Hodge, late of King's College and Otago University, has received Mghly encouraging notices from London critics on the presentation of his comedy, rt As It Was in the Beginning," by the Arts Theatre Club, where it was recently given three performances. The "first night" was a Sunday, that being the only day on which actors and actreeees belonging to the club were .able to attend. Dr. Hodge, who gained his early theatrical experience in the production of many student shows in Dunedin,, is not intending, by reason of this success, to forsake medicine for the more glamorous but less stable world of the "theatre.

The Auckland Catholic Repertory Society has decided that it will be necessary to stage its first production on October 14 and* 15, and not on the dates previously announced. The plays, which comprise a quadruple bill, will be presented in the Town Hall Concert Chamber. The plays will be interpreted by a cast of 48 players, and consist of "The Marriage of St. Francis" (Gheon), "The Golden Doom" (Lord Dunsany), "Cathleen ni Houlihan" (W. B. Yeats), and "The Coffee Stall" (Forwood). Among the players in the four pieces are: Mrs. George Tole, Misses Lyned Alison, Kathleen Coleman, Edna Craig, Mary Cruickshank, Joan Harley, Cybil Mulvaney, Marjorie Scholium, Messrs. Vernon Brown, Rex Oarew, Dan Flood, Jack Gordon, Huia Gould, Harold Haines, W. Harris, Horace Jones, Douglas Lunn, Alan McSkimming, J. Mackle, Val Mulgan, L. O'Malley, George Tole, Colonel Thompson, Master John Reed.

Rehearsals are in progress with the Hamilton Operatic' Society for the production of "The Belle of New York," to be presented in October. The producer will once more be Mr. A. E. Manning, who has been instrumental in the staging of some of the society's best efforts. These include "The Runaway Girl," "Katinka," "The Cingalee" and "Gipsy Love." Mr. Manning will be aided this year by Mr. W. Blyth. The chorus will be under the supervision of Mr. Harold Piper, while Miss Isabelle Brooke and Mr. George Kingston are controlling the ballet. The part of the "Belle" is taken by Wynn Harkness, as the immortal Salvation Army lass made famoue on Broadway by ijSdna May. Fifi Fricot, the little French girl, will be portrayed by Sophie Vivian. Other roles. are as follows:—lcihabod Bronson, Percy Evans; Harry Bronson, Robert McNicol; Blinky Bill, Harry Buchanan; Kenneth Mugg, A. Thomas Atkins; Cora Angelique, Myra Booth; and Kissy Fitzgarter, Mavis Zellman.

The third 1932 production of the Auckland Little Theatre Society will be presented in His Majesty's Theatre on September 28 for a season of three nights. The play selected is Arnold Bennett's four-act comic romance, "The Great Adventure," for which rehearsals* have been in progress for several weeks. Included in the cast are Mrs. Hugh Fenton, Miss Upton, Messrs. A. J. C. Fisher, Alan McSkimming, L. O'Malley and John Stewart. Marie Tempest and her husband, Mr. Graham Browne, presented the piece in this country many years ago, but it has not been produced here since. David Belasco was very successful with it under the title of "The Sentimental Journey." The Little Theatre Society's other two plays this year were produced, like "The Great Adventure," by Mr. Gaston Mervale. They were "The Constant Nymph" and "The Circle."

There is no doubt that revue and vaudeville have come into their own again, and for the former there is an ever-increasing demand. It has been said that Noel Coward's London success, "Cavalcade," is but revue under another name. Be that as it may, the public's demand is for variety, and to supply that demand Frank Neil will present at the Grand Opera House, Wellington, on Saturday, September 3, for the first time in New Zealand, a sparkling revue, "The Follies of 1932." I There are no less than 30 singing and dancing stars in this production, which is headed by the inimitable Ella Shields, famed for her original impersonation of "Burlington Bertie." The star is supported by a cast which includes Stan Foley and Athol Tier (the principal comedian), Miriam Lester (soprano), Arthur Clark (tenor), Maida Jones, Lily Malloy, Yvonne Banyard, Murray and Walton (dancers), Mascotte and Powell (adagio dancers), and the Follies Beauty Ballet. The revue will be staged in Auckland about three weeks after the Wellington opening.

Open-air performances of Shakespeare are not uncommon, but to transfer a London production for a few summer afternoons from the theatre to the park is a commendable innovation. The company playing "Twelfth Night" at the New Theatre, in July, took the hazard and made a success of it. The play was staged on a grass mound against a background of trees and shrubbery. Two marble seats, a few tubs of box trees for Sir Toby and his fellow-conspirators to hide behind, an oak table for the drinking scene, and a painted wall for Malvolio'e prison were all the "scenery" found to be necessary. Under the spreading branches of a great beech a black-gowned orchestra played irieidendal music, of which there fe a good deal in this production. Although loosened and extended by the depth and the width of the stage, the production admirably maintained its balance, and was, indeed, a much more satisfying interpretation of the comedy than when it was first presented at the New Theatre (according to "The Times"). "However one may receive the gravely boyish Viola of Miss Jean ForbosKobertson, the towering, womanly, flamboyant Olivia of Miss Phyllis Neil-son-Tprry, and the leisurely, elaborate Malvolio of Mr. Arthur "Won'tner. wo are bound to acknowledge that each of these parts is now completely consistent with itself," add the correspondent. "?