FOOTLIGHT FLASHES.

Evening Star, Issue 9582, 31 December 1894, Page 4 (Supplement)

FOOTLIGHT FLASHES.

Bessie Doyle'sailed* from ifedney for- , London on the lOtiainat' ' -T . - Cablegrams to thV Australian papera m» •tb»ti;A!rs.3J*v»r6 (Miss Mary AWersanj, confined at {he ,month,vis dangerously ill, and not expected to recover. _-.'.. George Darrell has gone into inanaget&eut - again, and bas> become lessee of the Melbourne Opera-house, which he opened on". Boxing .sight with his adWatiap of the Well-known rating novel 'The Double Event' *"-. - Mr Arthur Dacre and Mrs Dacre Amy Rosette} are'passengers for. Australia ]bv the R.M.S. QruW Tteg will, open fti Melbourne at the Bjkra Theatre; in oj>& junction with Mr William., Elton,., ■"-«! Arthur Dacrexand Mrs Dacre- are .eftnunf out under a twelve months? engagement,' and are. bringing with them a number of new.plays, amongst which are M'Wiftfa Ordeal' and ' by GJ -B. Sims; 'Esther Sandraz,' 'A Fine Day's Wonder,' and 'A Bunch of Violets,' by Sydney Grundy; * A Double Marriage,' and ' Men and Women.' - The season will be opened with the last mentioned piece, and ' later a special play now being-written for Mr and Mrs Dacre by G. B. Sims will be produced. , The attendance at the Cyril Tyler aeries of concerts in Cbristchurch was so poorj&s to lead a critic of one of the dailies to re- " mark that apparently, "so far as the publio i of Christchurch are concerned, concerts are ' dead as an attractive species of entertain--1 ment" - ■ , The Indian 'Daily News' recently criti- , cised with great severity a performance [ given by the *on the Thames' Theatrical , Company/ As the editor, Dr Daly, was . about to retire to rest, having put on his i pyjamas, three ladies of the company entered his apartment, and, having read out : the paragraph, cross-examined the doctor as i to its authorship, and demanded redress. i This Dr Daly declined to give, and the : ladies then, commenceed to flagellate the | doctor with canes whictf they had bibaght ' with tiaem. An exciting scene appears to [ have followed, but the doctor's agility anS ' . the furniture helped to save him from his ■ enemies. " I cannot strike a lady," said ■ the doctor. " No, but you are not ashamed 1 to take the bread out of their mouths," - re'orted one of his assailants. At length, " with many uncomplimentary remarks, the j invaders retired. Much interest, says a | Calcutta telegram, lias been aroused by the ■ event, and public sympathy is divided . between the two parties. ; .. THE HEWEST "STAB." Mrs Patrick Campbell, who has dashed at a bound into the front rank of theatrical • celebrities, does not owe her position 1 entirely to her' creation of Paula in the 1 'Second. Mrs Tanqueray.' She is in her | twenty-seventh year, and was married just ten years ago. It was a runaway match, and (says a writer in the ' World') at that : time no thought of the theatre as a fessional career had entered her head. She had, however, acted some dozen times, and mostly at Norwood, in those amateur theatricals which are responsible for leading so many halting steps stagewardsj and ' eventually she determined to make her essay more definitely towards the footlights. She never had a single lesson in her art. For almost eighteen months she played in a company engaged by Mr Ben Greet for the representation of the so-called pastoral plays and others. Her actual first appearance in London was in a matinee performance of ' As You Like ft' at the Shaftesbury Theatre, This was so far satisfactory as to lead to that engagement at the Adclphi Theatre which became the turning point in her career. An average Adelphl melodrama of the period is not supposed ordinarily to give much scope for the display of budding possibilities of power. But, at all events, the play was in the centre of the movement, sb far as things dramatic are concerned, and Mrs Campbell was seen and heard by many people who have theatrical destinies in their hands. It would be an amusing thing to put down the names of those ladies and gentleman who, during the past eighteen -months, have claimed confidentially to their friends the "discovery" of Mrs Patrick Campbell. Some two score of patrons and of the stage are understood to declare "alone I did it." So far as the principal personage of this little comedy is concerned, she avows her indebtedness to two persons —Mr Pinero and Mrs George Alexander, who persuaded her husband to engage the Adelphi actress for the St. James's Theatre. The first night of the 'Second Mrs Tanqueray' was a memorable one in modern | theatrical story, for a lady, who might almost have been described as« new actress, leaped at one bound into the foremost ranks , of her art. She appeared, unknown to the audience, somewhat at a disadvantage, for . she was not free from some of the after effects of an attack of typhoid fever, during the course of which she had had the strange fortune of bearing the nurses say " She is sinking," and of resolving to practically contradict them. But almost from the first \ moment of her apparition on the stage that slim, girlish figure riveted the interest of the audience to an absorbing degree. Everybody felt that the evening had witnessed ; not merely the success oi an important and i powerful play, but the revelation cf a new dramatic force of extraordinary power. "Paula Tanqueray" was a living woman, '- and in her struggles were witnessed the ' trialß and agonies of a human soul. People went to see the play again and again, and a dozen times over. 'The , Masqueraders,' in which Mrs Campbell has , at the St James'.Theatre, has added to her reputation, and the last mail papers were full of praise of her fine acting as the chief character in Haddon Chambers's new play, ' John -a - Dreams.' The ' World's' critic winds up a sketch of her career thus:—" At a time when England possesses fewer actresses of the first rank than at any period in its history, the future career of Mrs Patrick Campbell is a matter of very great interest to ail playgoers, and to all who take an interest in the drama, whether from a theatrical or a literary point of view. That the lady herself has set the mark of her ambition very high is known to all who are acquainted with her, and if her highly nervous and sensitive organisation is proof against the bird labor involved in the career she has embraced, may not one say, in often-quoted words: ' I hardly dare say how much I dare to hope!'" ___^