MIMES AND MUSIC,

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 65, 18 March 1911, Page 11

MIMES AND MUSIC,

JTBx Obfhjsus.J THE SHOW 3, OPERA HOUSE. Dolores, 20th to 23rd March Hugh J. Ward Company, 29th March to 12th April. J. C Williamson, 15th April to 6fch_ May. Allan Hamilton, Bth to 17th May .1. C. Williamson, ISth Jlay to 7th June George Marlow, 12th June to Ist July* Clarke and Meynell, 6th to 20th July. J. C. Williamson, 17th to 26th 1 August Clarke and Meynell, 15th to 30th September. J C Williamson, sth to 25th October. Clarke and Meynell, 3rd to 16th November Max Maxwell, 2nd to 16th December J. C, Williamson, Christmas season. THEATRE KOYAL. . Fuller's New Vaudeville Company. HIS MAJESTY'S THBAXEE. Hi<= Majesty's Pictures. - THE KING'S THEATRB. Eoyal and West's Picturei. ST. THOHAS'JJ HALh. Star Picture Company. Mademoiselle Antonia Dolores will give three concerts in Wellington next week, on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. Reports from the South speak highly of the performances of the present tour, and no doubt Wellington music-lovers will welcome "the opportunity of renewing acquaintance with the gifted vocalist. Mr. Selwyn Shrimplin, pianist, and Mr. John Prouse, baritone, will assist. The latest news of Miss Tittell-Brune is that she has been engaged by Sir Beerbohm Tree for a part in the forthcoming Shakesperian festival at His Majesty's Theatre. Miss Brune appeared at the same house last year. This actress has just acquired the English and Australian rights in a powerful drama on "Catherine of Russia." Mr. Ernest Toy, violinist, has joined the staff of the Marshall-Hall Conservatorium of Music, Melbourne, filling. th© place left vacant by Mr. Franz Diorich, who is on a visit 'to. Europe. Mr. Toy has also undertaken the leadership oi" the orchestra, of the Marshall-HaUcon-terts, as well as of the Melba-William-son operas. A special dramatic company is beiu" organised at present by William-Ander-son to open at The King's Theatre, Melbourne, on Easter Saturday. A short season will be played, and tha compauy will then journey to New Zea land, opening at Auckland on 9th May in "I he Prince and th« Beggar Maid." The Plimmer-Denniston Company are now booked up till March next. At the conclusion of the Sydney season they go to Perth and the fields for five or.cix weeks, returning to play in Melbourne, Bftllarat, Bendigo, awl opening again in Sydney with "Smith" and "Nobody's Daughter" on 30th September. The next New Zealand tour commences in Invercargill on Boxing Night. Mr. Richard Stewart, business manager of Dollar Princess'" 1 Company, will, at the conclusion of the New Zealand tour at Cbristchurch, proceed to Auckland to join the Williamson Dramatic Company, which is producing the Drury Lane success "The Whip." The New Zealand tour (wDI( wDI commence at Easter. Mr. Charles Berkeley, touring manager of "The Dollar Princess,'' will act in a similar capacity for "Thu Whip" tour. All-. Clyde Meynell furnishes thie information to a Sydney paper. — Oscar Ascho will return, here next year with three new plays, and Lewis Waller will" probably follow him not long after. Mr. Meynell saw "The Chocolate Soldier" in London during his recent visit, and describes this work, to be staged here this year, as "delightfully musical." There are only eeven principals, and the chorus is on the stage only 15 minutes thronghout the evening The piece was a huge success. In the meantime, this firm has just acquired another Continental comic opera, '"Die Sprudlefee," which has beeru drawing crowds in Vienna and Berlin, and this year in New York, where its English title is "The Spring Maid." This musical play will be staged in London during the present year. An all- Australian, show. sa,y» the Bulletin will be on view at Sydney Criterion on the 50lh and 31st inst. — "The Grey Kimona," a musical comedy with a libretto by artist D. H. Souter and music by F. Wynne Jones. R. B. Orchard is to play the hero, with Miss Amy Murphy as his" lady love. Others in the cast are Miss Rosalind Smeaton and Arthur Gibbs. Also, .Miss Pressy Preston, who was one of the most alluring featurer of J.C.W.'a "Humpty Dumpty" show and the sweetest of Gi'etchens in "Mother Goose," is lieturning to the stage in a part that should suit her. r The Australian girl is the mcefc beautiful in the world. H she goes on the stage she must, except in rare instances, remain in the chorus (writes Bert Levy, the Australian black-and-white arist, m an American paper), whilst most of the principal girls come from London branded "From the Gaiety Theatre." J. C. Williamson, the father of the Australian, profession, whom I had the pleasure of entertaining in New York recently, was looking for a principal boy for pantomime. A name »vas suggested. "We have better than she at home," remarked Mrs. Williamson. '"Yes, I kaow," continued J. C. W. : "but they won't have the local product" ; nor could he, explain the reason. Some day the theatregoers of the antipodes will remember poor little Violet Varley and Flora Graupner, and again insist upon, the local product. A striking instance of the realism which marks present-day dramatic productions is furnished in "Via Wireless, ' the new play which has followed "The Whip" at Her Majesty's Theatre, Sydney.* There are several very remarkable* scenss in the new piece, possibly themost interesting being the wireless room on a big ocean liner. There is no make believe about' the plant used in this scene, for it was installed specially by the Australasiar Wireless (Ltd.), and is the real thing. Another very no\tel scene ia that of a huge foundry, showing the casting of a nine-inch gun. The etiect of immensity in the picture b> cleverly conveyed by careful attention to perspective and other details which mark the difference hetweeu a finished scenic artist and a mere dabbler with the brush. The wreck of the steam yacht and the rescue of the survivors and tiho final .break-up of the disabled vessel is - highly exciting incident. The play itself also is one well calculated to keep an audience intensely interested throughout. Of the 100,000 shares in the Amalgamated Biograph Company, which has taken over the two Melbourne picture businesses of. 3. and N. Tait and Johnton and Gibson, the vendors take up 20,000 and the public 30,000; the other 50,000 will be sent to markeb later Of the £30,000, a first f aym«iif of £11.500 ,vfill go into the vendors' pocicets hi payment for the stock-in-trade; the 20,000 free shares are for the goodwill. The- second payment will pay for the Biograph Theatre, to bs built in Flind-crs-stroct, next Bal! and Welch's. The Tails have an option to leas-e this land for thirty years. The frivolous booK of "The Belle of New York," with that delightful character the Polite Lunatic who didn't care whether ichabad Brcnson was up a lemon tree or an crange tree, because "he climbed both kind of trees," was bo evidently the work of a clever man k that no pjjg was surprised when "Hugh.

Morton" was reveale^ as C. M. S. M'Lellan, the author of that more serious piece "Leah Kleschna." Now he has returned to his old love, musical comedy, in "Marriage of la Carte," the music of which is by Ivan Caryll. This was produced with much success ab the Casino Theatre (the original home of "The Belle") on 2nd January, with a host of clever people in it, including | Harry Conor. M'Lellan, a one-time New York journalist, has been living and writing a good deal in London, and J the American papers, whilst praising his new and witty libretto, quaintly mourn over the fact that he has become '"vary English indeed 1 , and) hiis new piece is wholly so.' The first 'important February production in London was A. E. W. Mafiom'e comedy-drama " The .Witness for the Defence" at the St. James's Theatre. Miss Ethel Irving, who sails for Australia in May, evidently :nade one of the great successes of her career as the heroine, Stella Ballantyne, with Mr. George Alexander, "in a rather -poor paTt, at best quietly effective, as the lover Heairy Thresk." In consequence of thia success, Clarke and Meynell leairn that "The Witness for the Defence" will be added to Miss living's Australian repertoire, which will also include "Lady Frederick," in the name part of which she appeared in 1907 and 1908 at fivo different London theatres, the Frency comedy "Dame Nature" ("Le Fernine Nue"), and Pinero'e "His House is Order," — all three for the first time ift Australia. The leading man of the Ethel Irving Company will be Stephen Ewarfc, brother of Hamilton Stewart, who was here with his wife, May Chevalier, in support of Cuyler Hastings some five 3'ears ago. Ewart has had a good deal of experience in London, and the prp- ; vinces, and secured a part recently in ! "D'Arcy of the Guards." The xievr company will also include Helliwel] Hobbee, a West -end actor; James Lindsay, not long since in Australia with Nellie Stewart, and subsequently with other managers, and lately touring in I England as Sartoris in " The Whip " ; and Miss Eily Malyoa, antith'er English artist of erperiece. "Billy B." in the Bulletin : Hugh J. Ward is only forty, but he has been j living on stage boards and grease for twenty-three years. I asked him, the other night, how many parts he had pla3 r ed. "Sir," he said, "I was curious to know that myself recently; but my private secretary died of writer's cramp half way through the list." In 1888 he opened out on the United States public in vaudeville; in 1889 joined Murdoclfs "Hoop of Gold" Company, and played over twenty leading parts, making' a hit in "The Artful Dodger" ; 1892, toured the Bermudas, playing in "Two Orphans," "Kathleen Mavourneen," "A Celebrated Case," and others; then (in different places in . the world) played leading parts in "A. Naval Engagement," "Ten Nights in a Bar-room," "Hoss and Hoss," "Rosedale," "Woman against Woman," "A Scrap of Paper," "Sweethearts," "Engaged," "Caiprice," "Our Regiment," "Moths," "Young Mrs. Winthrop," "Pink Dominoes," "Frou Frouj" , "The Galley Slave," "Ours," "Twelfth Night," "The Fencing Master," "The Silver . Lining," "Blow for Blow," "The Hurly Bfirly," "Our Boys," "Dork," "New York Day by Day," "Jack Cade," "Brother against Brother," . "Cross Roads of Life," "Michael Strogoff," "Lady Lil," "The Virginians," "East Lynne," "Captain Swift," "Niobe," "A Night Off," "War to the Kniio," "In spite of All," "May Blossom," "The Private Secretary," "Friends," "Wages of Sin," "The Bells" (Mat- ; thiasf, "Caste" (Eccles), "Cricket on the Hearth" (Caleb Plummer), "Little Lord Faimtteroy," The "Ensign," "Uncle Tom's Cabin," "The Two Orphans," "The Octoroon" (Salem Scudder), "The Colleen Bawn," "The Big Bonaza," "Jim the Penman," "The Wife," "Turned Up," "Jane," "Diplomat," "Dr. Bill," "The Jilt," "Twelfth Night," "Alabama," "Trilby," "Held by the Enemy," "New Cloi/u," and many others unknown to *ne, as well as all the later pieces known to everybody. Mr. George Willoughby, who will confine himself to the direction of his Easter season at the Criterion Theatre, Sydney, has now begun to rehearse in Melbourne " A Woman in the Case," in which the two central characters of ihe adventuress and the wife will fall to the new actresses Misses Eleanor Foster and Mabel Trevor. Their parts reached them at polombo, and they v arrived in Melbourne letter-perfect. This sensational comedy drama by Clyde Fitch | deals with an accusation of murder against Julian Rolfe, . duo to the machinations of the unscrupulous Claire Forster. The man had really committed suicide in Claire's presence, and it is only whilst Julian is in prison that his devoted wife, worming herself into the confidence of Claire, and apparently sharing her fast life, extorts a confession of the truth. This play, m which "Violet Vanburgh, and at the end of the run Miss Tittell Brune, both made a hit at the London Garrick Theatre, will open the Sydney season qn Ist April, but Mr. Willoughby has also the rights of "A Fool There Was." This powerful drama ran two years at the Liberty Theatre, New York, with Robert Hilliard as th© ruined man, and- Miss Elbert Orton (formerly here in the Julius Knight Company as Maid Marion) 'as the adventuress. This new play by Porter Emerson Browne more lately formed the subject of a novel. The basic idea, of the play is from 'Rudyard Kipling's poem "The Vampire," which will be readily recalled by ihe following stanza : — A Too) lliere was, ana he made bis prayer : (Even as you and I), To a rag, and a bone, and a hant. of hair, We called her "the -woman v,ho did not care." JJut the fool he called her his lady fair (Even as jou and I). Whilst od the one hand the present musical year will be undistinguished by the arrival of star artists to tour separately (says a Sydney paper), on the other hand there will be an unusual number of ensemble attractions. To the list already announced of the Melba Grand Opera Company and Sheffield Choir and the Sousa Band, must now be added the Royal Hawaiian Singers. These singers, who recently won honours at the American Ladies' Festival of Music at Bostor and Chicago, are 'now on their way to Australia in the Zealandia, under the leadership of Mr. Kaai, a favourite conductor and baritone from Honolulu. In addition to their songs and skill upon native instruments, the young Hawaiian ladies will introduce their national dance, the Hula. Theatrical Clips.— "Our Miss Gibbs" is in its 24th week in Sydney, and is certain to run for more than half a year — a theatdical record for Australia Early preparation is inseparable from pantomime. ClarkS and Meynell nave already arranged to put on "Dick Whittington" at the Melbourne Theatre Royal next Christmas, with Hal Ford (brother to Reginald Roberts) in a leading part. . . . The Cornish Pixie died in Calcutta on the Bth February. He contracted a severe cold, and died of acute nephritis. . . . Miss Heba Barlow, _ the Cinderella oi the late J. F. Sheridan's pantomime two "years ago, is playing principal boy in "Beauty and the Beasi" at Weston-super-Mure. . • • Miss Lily Everett, the old Pollard iavourite, contemplates returning to the stage shortly. . . . Mr. Harry R. Roberts will organise a dramatic company for a tour of Australia and New Zealand. . . . Established favourites in the peraons of Arthur Styan, Chae. Brown, and Tom Cannam are with Max Maxwell's company at The King's Theatre, MelDOurne. Max Maxwell is strongly supported managerially by_ G. D. Pori tvs ana Colin Campbell. t \ t