THE "PASSION PLAY" IN LONDON.

Evening Post, Volume LXX, Issue 37, 12 August 1905, Page 13

THE "PASSION PLAY" IN LONDON.

"The Passion Play," long the object of managerial aspirations, on account of its money-making posbibilities, is coming to the front again. The topic has been broached already in London, where Mr. Seymour Hicks, whose fame is associated chieliy with musical and melodramatic pieces, has been suddenly inspired with the ambition to demonstrate the moral and educational powers of the stage (relates the iSew York Evening Poht). Ho proposes to do this by means of— not a Passion Play, but something quite different— a series of tableaux, showing the life of Christ from childhood to the betrayal. There will be no spoken dialogue of any kind, but the moving pictures on the stage will be explained by printed stories distributed among the spectators. The actors willbe It'ilians, trained in pantomime, who will bo imported specially for the occasion. Musical accompaniments are to be provided by eminent composers. Performances will be given in the day lime, not in tho evening, nnd, if the authorities will permit it, on Sunduys also. According to present plans, the fiist representations will be given next spring, during Lent, in Mr. Hickh's new theatre, tho Aldwich. No doubt, by omitting the Crucifixion and later scenes, and making the players mute, some of the most salient objections to a performance of the sort might be avoided, but it is tolerably safe to predict that if tho British censor permits such a show to tako place, it will not be long before the regular Passion Play is given, with speech and all other realistic details. Mr. Hicks, probably, is quite sincere when he speaks of the reverential atmosphere with which his tableaux will bo surrounded and of the spiritual elevation which will bo brought about by their exhibition, but such things cannot be put upon the stage without undergoing a certain contamination and vulgarisation. Mr. Hicks expresses confidence that the censor will offer no objection, because, among other reasons, the profits are to be devoted to the hospitals. However purely philanthropic this proceeding may be, it is nevertheless extraordinarily astule. If tho show be permitted once on the score of oharily, a precedent will have been established, 'which it will be difficult, indeed, to ignore, or upset, hereafter.

Tho expense of running a comedy at a \Yesb End the-Hre in London is to-day about £700 a week (Bays a London paper). "Our Boys," which run for about 200 weeks, never exceeded £300 a week expenses. '"Charley's Aunt" and "The Private Secretary" showed a slight advance, but even in the short inteival that has elapsed .since they were produced rent nnd salaries have been doubled, and tho cost of mounting has increased tenfold. Those who are behind the scenes are aware that v big combiiib is at work, moving surely and not slowly towards its object. T/o corner play production in London is its purpose. Prico is no objecU where this combine is concerned. The levelling up can be done when the opposition has been settled and tho control of tho dramatic output for England and America is in its hanoX