MIMES AND MUSIC.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 112, 13 May 1911, Page 11

MIMES AND MUSIC.

XBt OKfjutua.l

THE SHOWS. OPERA HOUSE. Allan Hamilton, season closes to-night. ■T. C. Williamson, 18th May to 7th June George Marlow, 12th June to lbt July.' Clarke and Meynell. 6th to 20th July. J. C. Wltlianibon, 17th to 26th August Clarke and "Sleynell, loth to 30th September J. C. Williamson, sth to 25th October. Clarke and Meynell. 3rd to 16th November J. C Williamson, Christmas season. THEATKJB ROYAL. Fuller's New Vaudeville Company. HIS MAJESTY'S THEATRE. His Jia/<;sty'B Pictures. THE KING'S THEATRE. Royal and West's Pictures. ST. THOMAS'S HALL. Star Picture Company. THE NEW THEATRE. MaeJlahou and Donnelly's Pictures. Mr. Michael Joseph was the recipient of a very handsome travelling bag from the front staff of The King's Theatre, Melbourne, before his departure for New Zealand to manage the New Zealand tour of William Anderson's Dramatic Company, headed by Mr. Harry Roberts and Miss Beatrice Day, which commenced a season at Auckland on9tli May, in Walter Howard's charming story, "The Prince and the Beggar Maid." Mr. Joseph also received a very nice present from Mr. Anderson, in recognition of his valuable services during the number of years he had been associated with that successful Australian theatrical entrepreneur. In a chat with a Dunedin pressman the other evening, referring to his entering the J. C. Williamson firm. Mr. Ward said that as far as it lav in his power he would use his influence in the direction' of New Zealand securing all the big productions and attractions which have been arranged, and others being negotiated for in the future. "It, is, of course," ho said "impossible for the Melba Grand Opera Company to visit New Zealand., but I do want to assure you that if it is at all possible arrangements will be made for Mr. H. B. Irving and his English company ft> t tour New Zealand, and for all the other 'English and American engagements as they_ are made. I recognise what possibilities New Zealand offers for theatrical enterprise. Its interests will be> ours." Miss Nellie Lempriere, a young "actress, was taken to the Melbourne Hospital last week suffering from chlorodyne poisoning. 4 constable heard her crying for help in Carlton Gardens, and after some questioning she admitted taking poison because she had been dismissed from her position in the company in which she had been' playing. She admitted she had swallowed two and a half bottles of chlorodyne. She said she had played Stephanus in "The Sign of the Cross," Batty in "The Breed of the Treshanw," and had also taken part in "The Corsican Brothers" and "An Englishman's Home." She had been four years with one firm, and had been unable lately to obtain employment. Her condition is not serious. For some time Miss Lempriere appeared -with Mr. Julius Knight's company in Sydney and on tour, and she was a promising young actress. The Eoyal Hawaiians begin a tour of the Dominion about the middle of June. Judging by newspaper reports, New Zealanders are in for a fine musical performance. The organisation is composed of twelve persons, ten gentlemen aaict two ladies, one of the ladies being a clever exponent of that remarkable national dance, "The Hula:" Mr. Leo D. Chateau left for the North this week to herald the coming of Allan Hamilton's company (now at the Opera House) to the following towns : — Palmerston North, 15th and 16th hi&t. ; Hawera, 17th and 18th ; W»nganui, 20th,; Stratford, 22nd and 23rd; "New Plymouth, 24th and 25th; Hamilton, 29th and 20th; Cambridge, 31st; ,Waihi, Ist and 2nd June; Auckland, '3rd to 10th. The company then returns to Sydney. Mr. Chateau will be in Wellington on the Ist June to put "The Mountebanks" through the final reheareals of "Mrs. Dot," which that band of amateurs intend staging at the Opera House on the 7th, Bth, and 9th June. Mr. Chateau will then leave for the South, where he takes up the advance work for Clarke and Meynell's "The Arcadians" Company, which opens in Dunedin on 27th June. For the Australian production of " The Chocolate Soldier " Mi. W. A. Peterkhi, the well-known basso, who waa out here with Ada Crossley on her first Australian tour, has been engaged by Clarke and Meynell. Mr. Peterkin has appeared in the opera in London. Another special engagement for this musical comedy is Miss Rita Presano, who is "lent" for a limited time by her London manager. " The Whip " will be produced by Mr. J. C. Williamson's Company at the Opera _ House next Thursday. Its reputation had come before it." Two years of success in London gave to tha Theatre Royal, Drury-lane, the most profitable time it has ever had — enabling the company to pay £20,000 to the reserve fund — proves that ' Tho Whip " is a money-spinner. It needs to be. The production of a play of this kind is a colossal undertaking. The author, Mr. Cecil Raleigh, has plunged into the realm of j-ealisni. -There is, it is claimed, no make believe in "The Whip." It is life, real life. A pack of hounds, a field of racehorses, a railway train, a motor smash, are among the principal sensations. The characters do not depend for success upon witty epigram, but are made up of every day flesh and blood. There is an atmosphere about "The Whip" that has endeared ifc to Australian audiences, apart from the fact that it is a niais:erly production of modern stage craft. Several new pieces were produced in London during the third week in March. Porter Emerson Browne's " A Fool There Was," lo be staged iv Australia next year by the George Willoughby Company, was brought forward at the Queen's Theatre, and is summed up as effective "sensational melodrama." Miss Madge M'lntosh, an actress known here, played a small part. The Vampire, to use the term employed in Kipling's poem, wae played by Miss Katherine Kaelred, who made a hit in the character in New York, and is now warmly praised in London as "an actress of temperament and great charm." This artist, who in "her London interviews describes herself as English, and born at Folkestone, attributed her birfch to Richmond, Virginia, when in Sydney, cays a Sydney paper. Her acting in Sydney as Maid Marion in "Robin Hood " four years ago was very so-so ; but she was a handsome woman. In support of a fanciful argument that the latest development in modern drama is the " Staircase Play," the London Daily Chronicle remarks: — "At the Palladium a terrific scene is being enacted with swords upon the staircase of 'The House on the Heath/ the Claude Duval sketch in which Matheeon Lang and Miss Hutin Britton have returned to the favour of popular audiences after their tour in Australia." Again, it is upon a staircase of a chateau in France that Mrs. Fowler's dramatic bketch " The Accolade," is brought to a •'lose at tho Colwcuiu IJut most wonderful of all is t'> he Iho staircase nalU jn "The Count, nf Luxeniboui^." tho musical pU\ by Lulwr, v. huh is lv replace "A Waltz Duain" at Daly's

Theatre. In Germany a waltz in performed in this opera ill which the dancers maik the rhythm of every revolution with a kiss, and towards the end they waltz up a broad staircase at the back of the stage, awl waltz down again with never a torn frock to argue the dangers of bo remarkable a feat. The most important dramatic news of the week, cays Sydney Morning Herald, is the decision of J. (j. Williamson, Ltd., to open H. B. lrviug's Australian tour in Sydney on 24th June, when "Hamlet" will be elaborately produced. This brilliant young actor has been in management for himself in London 6iiK-e 1908, and will return there at the end of the year to open his own Irving Theatre, now a-buiiding at Charing Cross, near tho Memorial Statue to his father, whose eldest (son he us, and whom he most resembles as the Prince of Denmark. In regard to Mis. Hodgson Burnett's emotional story of slum-life' ia New York, "The Dawn of To-moirow," in which Bliss Katharine Grey is appearing in tho cheerily optimise "Glad," in Melbourne it may be noted that it is one of several pieces which, liko "Salvation Xell," have- not yet reached London. Very shortly "The Third Degree" is to be produced there by Arthur liourchier and Violet Vanbrugh, under the title of "The Defence." The American author, Charles Klein, has madw certain alterations to conform to the English laeas of police-court procedure. It is somewhat strange that although Klein has written a score of successful di-amae, three of which were simultaneously running in New York in 1906, only two of them, "Paid in. Full" and "Thß Lion and the Mouse," have hitherto reached England For the third time Mr. Nat Goodwin, the well-known American actor, has been divorced, and by the terms of the decree granted by the Supreme Court of JSew York he is forbidden to marry again. Mr. Goodwin was married to Miss Ella Goodrich, by whom he has juet been divorced, in November. 1908. When the divorce proceedings were begun it -was said that a deed of gift conveying to Mies Goodrich one-half of £320,000 worth ot bonds and real estate in California had been given to her by Mr. Goodwin three months before their marriage, and before Mr. Goodwin was divorced from Mies Maxine Elliott, his third wife. Counsel, it was said, would I'aose the question of the validity of the deed of gilt, contending that it -was subject lo the dower rights of Mies Maxine Elhott. The previous marriages of Mr. Goodwin had been, firstly,, to Mies Eliza Weathersly, one of the most beautiful of New York's stage beauties, who died : secondly, to Miss Nella Pease, of Buffalo, by whom he was divorced; and, thirdly, to Miss Maxine Elliott, against whom Mr. Goodwin obtained a divorce on^the grounds of "desertion." "The Whip," which will be staged i here next week, owes not a little to the geniality and breadth with which that favourite comedian, Mr. Ambrose Manning, plays the part of the houe«t trainer. Tom Lambert. This actor i» now paying his third visit to Australia, He came here with the late Wilson Bar rett in 1898, and was in the second company in 1901. Crcegan, Glabrio, and the grave-digger in "Hamlet" ar» the three characters which established Mr. Manning's popularity in this country; but h« played a long list ot parts with his /friend Wilson Barrett during tha twenty-three years they wer« associated. • Mr. Manning started his career m London as Gaffer Pottle, in the original production of "The Silver King" at the Priilccss Theatre in London in 1882. After Barrett's death m 1903 Mr. Manning made his first ap pearance in musical comedy as Vava Alichu, in "Tho Little Miehufi," and from that time he has remained m musical pieces until his '■ return with "The Whip." For some time past Mr. Henry Bracy has been hearing voices in Melbourno and Sydney for the chorus ot" the 'Melba opera season. Nearly 400 applicants presented themselves in Sydney, and out of this number forty were listed for « a final test. This means,' that 10 per cent, are in the running for selection Mr. Bracy state* that between the three citiea— Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide — he has heard- over 1000 yokes. Taken in the bulk, Adelaide averaged the best, arid the auperiority of the contralto voices in that city over th* others was quite marked. In Sydney and Melbourne there were • several soprano voices of excellent range and quality, and many young singers gave evidence of fine musical perception. He considers that tho chorus, when assembled, will be quite worthy «>f *'ta association with the big starts of the Melba Reason. Miss Johanna Redmond, daughter of Mr. John Redmond, M.P., lias scored a succeaa with a new on^-aut play, "Falsely True," produced at the London Pa-iaoe Theatre last month. The story, a stirring one. deals with events at the time of the Robert Emmett rising in 1803, the three principal characters being Moran, Mary, and Shaun. The language in which they talk (says the Standard) is curiously . beautiful — full of the fascinating Irish temperament. The play should read even better than it performs. The play wajs warmly received. Miss Redmond bemg called before tho curtain -at the end. Wnen "The Balkan Princess" L» produced in Sydney by the New Comio Opera Company in succession to next week's "Dollar Princees," the cast will include Mr. Edmund Sherras, who has returned to Aubtralia -under special engagement for the new piece. Meanwhile, the baritone id hiling-m-time as on© of the medical specialists assembled in consultation Avhen the curtain rises . upon "The Dawn of To-morrow," which play has joist been produced at the Princess Theatre, Melbourne, by the Katharine Gray Company. Mr. Sherras made his Sydney debut three years ago, in the baritone light comedy role of "The Lady Dandies." In the English, revival of "Thß Speckled Band," by Conan Doyle, the part of Sherlock Holmes was played by 0. P. Heggie, who came through New Zealand with Hawtrey's first "Message from Mars." Heggie played the Martian. Theatrical Clips.— Mr. Harry Rickards and his general manager, 'Mr. John C. Leete, 'Mrs. Rickards, and. Mrs. Leete, have left Sydney for England. . Mi 1 . Edwin Brett and Miss Emmeline Orford, who recently returned to England from Australia, where they had been appearing in comic opera and pantomime, opened last month at Olympia, Liverpool, in their latest vaudeville, "A Day With the Ducks." . . New Zealand >vill probably see "The Fatal Wedding" under a Marlow banner next year. . . George Edvvardes, a cousin of the'fam"ous London manager, is coming out to Australia with Ethel Irving to manage her company, which is to appear under engagement to Clarke and Meynell. . . The Sheffield singers are bemg well looked after on tour. A medical man and three trained nurses accompany them. . . Miss Maud Perman, member of the well-known theatrical family, died at her residence, East Melbourne, on l^t May, from consumption. Deceased, who was married four years ago to Mr. Charles Moody, comedian, left a little girl, 2£ years of age. . . "Pabst" : An Adelaide rumour insists that Fanny Powers, of a hundred Rickards shows, is to many one "Billy" Foote, a local motor-vend. . . The English and American vaudeville aystem of "two shows i nightly," at 7 and 9 p.m., is. being prc&ented in Sydney at the Standaid Theatre. . . In '-The Whip.'' Mice Emma Tfinple plays the ro!o of Aiie. Beamibh. ■Mr. Eardley Turner is in the cast aa : the Marquis of Bevexle^.