MIMES AND MUSIC.

Evening Post, Volume LXVIII, Issue 134, 3 December 1904, Page 13

MIMES AND MUSIC.

[Br Orpheus.]

COMING EVENTS. OPERA HOUSE. Woods-Williamson, 10th, December to 18th December. J. C. Williamson, Boxing Night to 14th January. THEATRE SOtAL. Dix Gaiety Company. HIS MAJESTIES THEATBI. Fuller's Entertainers. The Australasian, it appears, is responsible for the circulation of the statement that Mr. Herbert Flemming (who* brought round the late Mr. Mel. B. Spurr) has joined with Mr. Robert Brough in a partnership venture hi the colonies.l* It is stated that one of the first engagements made was that of Mr. G. S. Titheradge. In Melbourne the chief event of the past week has been Mr George Musgrove's production of "Old Heidelberg" at the Princess Theatre. This proved to be a picturesque comedy-drama from the German, in which, tha hero, a young prince brought up in the strictest seclusion, is sent to Heidelberg University to see the world with his old tutor, Dr. Juttner. There he falls in love with his landlord's pretty niece, Kathie. Events then suddenly recall him to his kingdom as Regent, and after two years of exalted office he again finds himself free to revisit his old chums and his young sweetheart at Heidelberg. But most of his friends have left, the few remaining call him "Your Highness'," and Kathie, after many' tears, has accepted her fate, and is about to marry a liverystable keeper.. We read that in the interpretation Mr. Harcourt Beatty was well placed as the prince, Miss Nellie Stewart played merrily a slighter part than usual as Kathie, and a great hit waa made by Mr. Dudley Clinton as Dr. Juttner. The new play is said to be well written and full of interest. In London it enjoyed an immense run, with Mr. George Alexander in the chief character. Mr. W. T Stead has begun his .longexpected mission to the theatre, but his visit has provided anything but sensational reading. The play was "The Tempest." Mr. Stead considers that Mr. Tree's revival of " The Tempest " "is a national service, and well deserves national recognition. If all plays are like this play," he continues, " then the prejudice against the theatre is absurd. Anything that is more challenging that ' The Tempest,' or anything that gives ' one more furiously to think,' I have not met for many a long day." There was jothing remarkable to Mr. Stead's virgin eyes in the character and appearance of the audience. " The audience, so far as I could see it, was exactly like that at an ordinary concerb or popular lecture. Perhaps more were in evening dress, but there was no conspicuous display of costume. There was no great display of enthusiasm, none of emqtion, and absolutely no manifestation of disapproval — row after row of smooth, decorous, reserved, well-dressed, conventional creatures, in conventional dress, doing the conventional thing in the conventional way— that was the audience that I saw at His Majesty's" As to the play, the concrete embodiments oi the players did not coincide with the abstract conceptions of his mind, and he was disappointed. Miranda he summed up as " fair to see, but hard to hear." Prospero is materialistic to the finger-tips, with not a glint of the occult world discernible by the psychic sense visible in his eye or accent. Ariel is fair to look iipon, and pleasant to hear, but the wings Tvere grotesque absurdities. Caliban "is a powerful creation, but ''in some important respects he is not my Caliban." But Caliban suggested many things to Mr. Stead — the Criminal Law Amendment Act, Lobengula, and Rhodesia, and last, but not least, a remarkable political parable and a prophecy. He saw in the misshapen monster the personification of the democracy, while Trinculo stands for Lord Rosebery and Stephanc for Mr. Chamberlain, , . According to an experienced concert manager, London is no longer the land of promise to aspiring artists. A representative of the Daily Chronicle had a chat with Mr. Pedro Tillett, the niduager of Mr. N. Vert's business. " Things are very dull,' said Mr. Tillett, 'and "t^he outlook is gloomy. Theie does not seem to be very much money about for either private or public concerts', and, though men like Paderewski and Sarasate will always attract crowds, there seems a. bad time coming for artists who have not such big names. Up to the present the bookings for concerts have been very poor, aim 1 have heard of no men of any note who will be introduced to the public before Christmas. The one name that I purpose bringing forward is that of a violinist who many years ago created a very favourable impression as a 'prodigy.' He is Herr Branislaw Hubermann, and when he left London he resumed his studies, and has since developed into a finished artist." Lovers of the mysterious will welcome a new item which has been added to the programme of the London Hippodrome (says an exchange). It is called "Zutka, the Mysterious," and whether "Zutka" is a living person or a dummy" is a problem which must be left for solution to each victor. The performance may be briefly described thus: A small black wooden box, measuring 2ft long, lft 4in wide, and lft 6in deep, was placed in the middle of the arena. The lid was taken off by the exhibitor and some paper used as packing was removed. One of the ends was let out, and "Zutka's" head fell with it. As soon as the othfr end was dropped the legs went out with an almost spring-like action, and the figure was then seen lying at full length, 6ft 4in from head to feej, dressed as a pierrot. The showman, who wore a pair of. indiarubber gloves, placed the figure, which remained quite stiff, on its feet, which were kept close together during almost the whole of the performance. Unassisted, "Zutka" stood upright while an electric wire, attached to a small dynamo on the stage, was fixed to the clothing in front at the waist. The electrical machine was set in motion and the figure immediately began to move, bending its t>ody from the waist, raising its arms, turning its head, and clapping its hands. When the hands met an electric spark was seen between tae fingers. The wire was disconnected, and "Zutka" was carried from the arena to the stage and placed underneath two suspended gymnasium rings. From this movement the figure appeared to be rather weighty. Again the electric wire was connected and the current apparently turned on, after which the arms rose to the rings, round which the hands were folded by the exhibitor. A gymnastic performanco followed. The body lifted itself to a horizontal position and the legs doubled over until the Jeet almost touched the head. At this stage a leather band was strapped round the legs and body, binding them together, and the figure afterwards made several revolutions, which necessitated the circular motion of the arms and rings as in tho case of the ordinary gymnast when going through a similar movement. At the conclusion of this performance "Zutka" was carried ■back into the arena, the electric wire again being taken away, and in less than a minute the "performer. was put

into the box, the sides of which had been fixed up again, and the lid was replaced. If "Zutka" is a Jiving person whose limbs have been trained for this doubling-up trick, the performance is remarkable one ; if the whole thing is mechanical, the inventor has produced a novelty which will interest most people who care for shows of this kind. Much has been said about the musical patriotism of Prague in organising a public funeral for Dvorak, under the auspices of the Bohemian Academy of Sciences, of the National Theatre, of the Union of Artists, of the Conservatory of Music, and of the municipal government. The bill of expenses for this splendid 'interment, amounting to 2200 crowns, was afterwards presented to the composer's family. The family, might have expressed well-bred astonishment, but politely forebore and paid the bill. During the Wagffer Festival, which took place at Munich in September, an experiment was made in the arrangement of the canopy which covers the orchestra. In order to make it possible to increase or diminish the opening through which the sea of orchestral tone flows into the auditorium, and thereby to control more completely effects of orchestral climax and softness, a device of electrical mechanism was prepared by which the covering of the "mystic gulf" could be moved backward or forward - at will. This effect is manipulated by the conductor from his stand and with the simplest means. It is accomplished invisibly to the public, who feel only the increase or decrease in the volume of tone. It is, in fact, a great orchestral "swell," imitated from the swell of the organ. Mr. W. T. Stead's "Impressions of the Theatre" should be interesting, if not convincing. Both critics and players are, however, tiring of Mr. Stead's exhaustive preliminary remarks. They are curious to know what he actually does think of the form of amusement 'hft has so carefully avoided for half a century. Mr. Stead is already being severely criticised for approaching the theatre from the standpoint of the uninformed. "It is soon apparent, 1 ' cays the Era, "that Mr. Stead has only been settirig the theatre up to knock it down again. His want of information allows him to make erroneous statements without reserve. 'How often,' he asks, 'do we hear op Tead of any one receiving •an impulse to nobler living from the stage?' It is a matter of recorded fact that many criminals have had their consciences awakened when 'sitting at a 1 play' ; and as for the thousands who have been humanised and improved by witnessing good dramas, they merely do their duty and do not rush into print and write their biographies. The theatre is not the friend, the " instructor, and the consoler of the ambitious journalist, the pushing politician, or the self-advertising 'philanthropist. These parsons' lives are various and dramatic enough without artificial stimulus. The office of the drama is, as it was in the early days of which Mr. Stead writes so amiably, to afford recreation to those whose lives of monotonous industry render 'diversion' of some kind an absolute necessity. Deprive them of amusement -and they must either drink or go mad. As a matter of fact, where there is no amusement to be had public houses multiply. The selfishness df some people is exfcraprdinary. Because they are so happily situated or so curiously constituted that they do not feel any desire for need of art or amusements, they Would, if they could, deny both to thousands of their fellow-creatures. It is true that they canndt, as the Puritans did in 1642, shut up all the theatres. They dare not even denounce- the drama in downright terms. It may be so.' 'I am stating the argument, not endorsing it,' says Mr. Stead, insidiously. Here is a sample of his style of argument, or rather, of ex parte statement : 'So far as my observation goes, especially amoiig young people, the tendency of stage plays is not conspicuous in the cultivation of philosophic patience in bearing the ills of life. Rather does it tend to the opposite- direction of unsettlemenfc, restlessness, and discontent when they return to the grey, humdrum life of every day after revelling in the purple splendours of the mimic world behind the footlights.' It has been cynically remarked that the great thing needed by a journalist in order tb write a sensational article is lo know nothing whatever of hia subject. By 'avoiding' the drama, and by devoting all his energies to more or less sensational journalism, Mr. Stead has placed himself in a position of enviable ignorance which allows him to make the most grotesquely absurd statements without even a suspicion of their inaccuracy. Any one who has the slightest acquaintance with the lives of -the hundreds of young men and young women who have to earn their living in London, often without home life of any kind, knows that the weekly visit to the theatre is the one thing which enables them to endure with 'philosophic patience' the monotonous industry of their daily lives. Such a sentence as 'the purple splendours of the mimic world behind the footlights' is sheer fustian, very suggestive of the curious condition of Sir. Stead's imaginations of the stage. Fancy the 'purple splendours' of .'Charley's Aunt!' Mr. Stead is, he states, soon going a round of the theatres. We are now well warned of tho 'frame of mind' in which he will start on his mission. There were certain officials in the Puritan times which Mr. Stead alludes to who were clever at 'smelling out' a witch. Mr. Stead ma' be trusted not to leave even the shadow of an impropriety overlooked. But we think that it would have been better had he postponed his insinuated censure of the contemporary'drama until after he had gained some information concerning it." Theatrical Clips.— Nat Goodwin has engaged Ruth Mackay (in Australia with the- "Ben Hur" Co.) as leading lady for his American Co. ... Lillah M'Carthy, who visited the colony with the late Wilson Barrett, is to make her .first important London appearance this season in "The Master of Kingsgift," at the Avenue Theatre. . . .Hilda Spong is winning golden opinions in New York for her performance in "Joseph Entangled," Henry Arthur Jones's latest comedy. . . . "If the lady offenders at the Leeds Musical Festival do not do something to remove the nuisance of big hats, they may, we are told, be relegated to seats by themselves." — Thus a London paper. . . . Gabriel Pierne's oratorio, "The Children's Crusade," which won a premium of £280 in the recent municipal contest at Paris, will be produced in that .city, 11th and 18th December. A trained chorus of 250 school children will take part in the performance. . . . Andre Messager's operetta, "The Prince Consort," has been brought out in Berlin. . . . Marcinelli's new opera, "Paolo c Franresca," will be produced at the Scala Theatre in Milan during the winter. . . . Engelbert Hiimperdinck has completed a new opera entitled "A Forced Marriage."^ . '. . .Charles Warner during his tour "of Australia next year will stage many of the plays he so successfully presented on his previous visit. Among them will be "Drink," "Captain Swift," "The Barrister," and "Dora." !