ST. JAMES'S THEATRE.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18670, 20 April 1926, Page 10

ST. JAMES'S THEATRE.

SYDNEY'S LATEST PLAYHOUSE.

(FROM OUB OWK COBBBSrONDEKT.) SYDNEY, April 7. With the opening of the new St. -James's Theatre by tho Ward-Fuller management, Sydney has been furnished with yet another fine playhouse, and what is generally regarded as one of the most modern in the world. Standing on the site of what was one of Sydney's historic old schools, it will be within coo-ee almost of the big St, James's underground station when the city railway is completed. Sydney is now as well-equipped with big playhouses as most big cities. Some of them date back a good many years. Looking back over some of the old playbills the eye is arrested by productions which, while practically never heard of nowadays, could possibly be revived with advantage in some caseß. In 1875, for example, when a new building, under the present name of Theatre Royal, rose from the ashes of its predecessors, it bogan its career with Byron's comedy, "Daisy Farm." Under that pretty title there is just a hint of the exuberance and ecstacy of Nature. Perhaps, howeVer, it would not conform to the spirit of the modern age. Three playhouses on the present site of the Theatre Royal were destroyed by fire before the existing building was erected and remodelled in 1921. In the somewhat primitive fire brigades of those days, fires in the theatre zone must have set up an almost feverish condition among tho fire-fighters, for yet another fire interrupted the run of "Ben Hur" at the original Her Majesty's in 1002, the present handsome theatre being completed late in the following year. The new and handsome St. James's Theatre, with the underground railway in operation, will be the most central of all Sydney's playhouses. The brilliant opening of it gave to the neighbourhood, amidst the lustre of bright lights, countless taxis, and smart dresses, a gaiety and dash which would have perturbed somewhat the minds of those who peopled this quarter of the city back in-the days when prim little girls with their long plaited hair went to school there.