FOOTLIGHT FLASHES

Evening Star, Issue 14529, 31 March 1911, Page 10

FOOTLIGHT FLASHES

[By Call Boy.] . Miss Jose Collins, daughter of the famous Lottio Collins, who made ' Ta-ra-ra-iboom-de-ay' a world-wide- melody, has been married to Mr J. Lionel Chadfield, a well-to-do gentleman who made her acquaintance just before she entered upon, her engagement at the Theatre Royal, Manchester. Miss Collins has been associated with the London West End music halls for some years, and has established herself a favorite a« a ballad singer and comedienne. The wedding took place at a London registry, and was a very simple function. Tho British Premier has awarded a pension of £2OO out of the Royal Bounty Fund to Mrs Kennedy-Fraser, who is a cultivated musician, and has done much to collect and preserve the music of tho Highlands. She is l daughter of David Kennedy, who in his day was a prince among Scottish vocalists. Tribute to the value of popular amusements as a means of reducing drunkenness was paid by the chairman of the Durham Licensing Bench at the annual meeting of that body. The police report showed a diminution of 123 convictions for drunkenness in the year; atfu Captain Appleby, commenting on the fact, congratulated the division on the marked decrease of drunkenness. No doubt much of that decrease was due to the music halls and popular places of amusement to which people could go instead of being obliged (as they were in olden days) to become habitues of public houses as the only means of meeting their friends and enjoying their leisure hours. A pretty 6tory of Miss Ellen Terry and a gallant young playwright has gone the round* of the players. Miss Terry attended in New York tho first night of th.'6 playwright's latest work, ;uid at t.'io end of the third act he was presented to her. She congratulated him warmly. ■" It is very good," she said. " Your play is very good indeed, and I shall send all my American friends to see it." "In tiiat case," isaid the playwright, with a very low and courtly bow, "my little piece will sdl mnety million tickets." Mr Michael Jcseph, who has not been to New Zealand for several years, will pilot William Anderson's dramatic organisation on its New Zealand tour, which commences at Auckland on Saturday, May 9, in Walter Howard's fine romantic drama, ' The Prince and the Beggar Maid.' 'Woman and Wine' and 'Revenge' proved the trump cards of the Maxwell season at the King's Theatre, Melbourne. In the tirst-meiitioncd Mr Arthur Stzan received an enthusiastic welcome on reappearing in his original creation of the hunchback of the flower market. Another faature of the play was the introduction of a harem skirt ballet, the costumes being made on the latcct American models. Miss Dollie Beecham i 6 desirous of imitating the success of her brother Thomas, who is to-day one of the forces at Covent Garden, having established his right to be considered in the front rank of operatic productions. Her bent is dancing. -As a small child 6he would danco steps of her own invention until her nurse had to stop her by force. It is, however, only recently that Miss Beecham learned professionally how to trip the light fantastic. Like Lady Constance Stewart Richardson, it i 6 chiefly in the cause of charity that Mdlle Dollie is induced to dance in public. When she goes on the stage she is almost invariably accompanied by her pet cat, Vet, her devoted companion and her mascot. Vet has the bluest blood' of any cat in England running in his veins, and he wins all the first prizes at every show at which he competes. Miss beecham'6 friends believe that if she had not been born a daughter of a multi-millionaire she would have proved a serious rival to Madame Genec.

Tho King is depositing on loan at the British Museum, where a special room will be built, the whole of his valuable music iibrary, which has been preserved at Buckingham Palace for over a century. The great glory is the unrivalled series of Handehan \ISS., presented to George 111. by Handel's amanuensis, John Christopher Smith, in gratitude for the continuance of a pension conferred by the King's mother. They comprise the autographs left by Handel to Smith—32 volumes of operas, 21 of oratorios, 7 of odes and serenatas, 12 of miscellaneous sacred music, 5 of instrumental music, 11 of cantatas and sketches, besides 41 volumes of authentic copies. This is the chief authority for Handel's text, and was used as such for the great German edition of Handel. Next in value is a large volume, almost entirely in the autograph of Purcoll, designed by him as a chronological record of his own work of certain kinds. A volume written by a 16th century Windsor singing man includes compositions by Henry VIII. The collection of Agostino Steffa.ni'B works (1652-1728) is the completest extant. The Victorian collection includes the complete works of the Prince Consort and his brother. Altogether there are probably 1,000 MSS. and 3,000 printed works. THE CORONATION OPERA SEASON. Colonial visitors to London during the Coronation season will be interested to hear what Covent Garden has in store for them. The "grand" season will open on April 22, and will last till July 29. The management hope to make it the most brilliant on record. The climax of the season will be the Coronation gala night on Juno 26, when the King and Queen and all the Coronation guests will attend the performance at Covent Garden. The space allotted to tho public will be mucli smaller than usual that night, and all the available seats will be soon snapped up. The Court has commanded more than half of the ordinary stalls, twenty grand tier boxes, and oii;nt in the pit tier. For the public seats the number of applications is already enormous. Not a single Wagnerian opera will be heard during the three months' season. Tho only operas new to Londoii are Puccini's 'Girl of the Golden West,' recently produced for the first time in New York, and Massenet's ' Thais,' which was hist produced in Paris sixteen years ago. Mdlle Destinn will take the title part in the one and Mdme Kousnietzoff in the other. Puccini will also be represented by ' La Boheme,' with Melba and M'Cormack singing; ' Madam Butterfly,' with Distinn, Sammarco, and possibly M'Cormack or Martin; ' Manon Lescaut,' with Kousnietzoff, Martin, and Sammarco; and 'La Tosca,' with Destinn, Sammarco, and Martin or Bassi. Tetrazzini will appear in Rossini's 'II Barbiore di Siviglia, with Sammarco in the title part; Destinn in Mascagni's ' Cavalleria Rusticana'; Tetrazzini and M'Cormack in Delibes's 'Lakma.' Verdi will be represented by 'Rigoletto' and 'Traviata,' in both of which Melba and Tetrazzini will sing, and by 'Aida,' with Destinn, Dalmores, and Sammarco in the leading parts. In Donizetti's ' Lucia di Lammermoor' we are to hear Tetrazzini and perhaps Melba also, as well as Bassi. Baron F. d'Erlnnger's 'Tess' will reappear with Destinn. Martin, and Sammarco in the cast. In Leoncavallo's 'Pagliacci' tho singers will include Bassi and Sammarco; ir» Bellini's ' Sonnainbula' Tetrazzini and M'Cormack; in Moyerbeer's 'Huguenots' Destinn and Tetrazzini together. In French we are to have Bizet's 'Carmen,' introducing Mdme Do Georgis, with Dalmores as Don Jose. Mdme Edvina will sing in "both Charpentier's 'Louise' and Debussy's 'Palleas et Melisande,' M. Warnery taking the part of Palleas. From Gounod's works have been chosen 'Romeo ot Juliette' and 'Faust.' In the 'Samson et Dalila' of Saint-Saens Mdme Kirkby Lunn will take hor former part. At great expense the whole of the Imperial Russian corps de ballet, about 100 strong, has been engaged for this, their first English season, which follows a highly-successful visit to Paris last year. The Russians will arrive about the middle of June, and stay till tho end of the season. At the Russian ballet school all the dancers are trained from boyhood and girlhood. Vaslay Nijinsky, the premier danseur, is said to be the most remarkable exponent of his art in the world to-day. The corps will bring all its own scenery for. the seven ballets to be performed. Some of these will be given after the shorter operas; some evenings will be devoted to the ballet aloo»

A CHAT WITH WALTER DESMOND. The Katherine Grey-William Desmond combination sailed for Hobart by thi6 week's steamer. The tour ended at Invercargill on Saturday. That day I had an informal chat with tome Members of the company. Mr Desmond, whose first visit it is, says he thinks New Zealand a very beautiful country, but in some of the towns visited the theatres fall far short of the requirements. The dressing rooms are inadequate, and there are no facilities for the players. In one of the Southern towii6 there was nothing but candle-light, and it was extremely difficult for the principals to "make-up." It was really like playing in a barn, so far as the dressing rooms and convenienses for the actors were concerned. The audiences themselves were extremely warm; they took to the plays, though these were all American, and to the new members of the company right away. In this connection, Mr Desmond incidentally mentioned that on hiß first appearance in Sydney he was as nervous as a kitten. He recognised that he was playing in new pieces, and feared that the Australasian audiences would not take to the pieces. But his fears were quickly dispelled, and hi 6 fir6t impression of the sympathetic audiences had been confirmed all along the line. The business? Well, from the treasury point of view he was assured that a record had been created. Mr Desmond cheerfully admits that his visit to Australasia had endeared him to the country, and if Mr J. C. Williamson proposes an extension of his engagement he will not be averse to favorably entertaining the proposal. His favorite parts are in 'Raffles,' 'lf I Were King,' 'Sherlock Holmes,' and ' Paid in Full.' He was conscious of the fact that exception was taken to his want of reserve power in certain passages of John Ryder in 'The Lion and the Mouse.' The millionaire, however, was supposed to dominate everyone with whom he was brought into contact till he met the girl in the play. The people who witnessed 'The Lion and the Mouse' must not believe that Ryder is typical of the American millionaire. Speaking personally, Mr Desmond mentioned that ho was thirty-one years of age, that he joined the stage ten years ago, that he went on tour with a company which left New York with 'Quo Vadis' as their principal attraction, and that when they returned after a twelve months' season he was playing the principal character. He also filled the leading part in 'The Sign of the Cross,' and was Mark Antony in 'Antony and Cleopatra,' Miss Florence Stone being the Cleopatra. The present combination appear in Melbourne at Easter, when they will produce Bernard Shaw's ' Arms and the Man,' with the oneact skit 'Madam Butterfly' as a curtainraiser. It may be mentioned that Mrs Desmond is a sister of the well-known actress Nance O'Neil, whoseiMagda will be familiar to many of my readers. THE CAGED BIRDS OF MODERN SOCIETY. Tho new drama is like the new womanpractical, unromantic, clever, facing tho facts of life without any of the illusions of old-fashioned sentimentality. Perhaps this is why women are beginning to show such an aptitude as dramatists; but that is by the way. This article is concerned with the work of a male dramatist, and a very brilliant one—Mr Granville Barker. His last play, 'The Madras House,' has justbeen published in paper covers, and it is to retoftmiend this little volume to all New Zealanders who are interested in the play of ideas that I write. Mr Granville Barker needs no introduction to readers familiar with the new school of dramatists in England. He is only thirty-three now, and he had gained distinction while ©till in the twenties as actor, playwright, and manager. His plays are ' The Marrying of Ann Leete,' "The Voysey Inheritance,' ' Waste' (which the Censor banned), and 'Tho Madras House,' and he has collaborated in two others—'The Weather Hen' (with Berto Thomas) and 'PTunella' (with Laurence Houseman). ' The Madras House' is a play which can be ihoroughly enjoyed when read, even though yo:i never see it on tho stage. Indeed, 1 must confess it has pleased me even more in book form than it did when I 6«w it acted. It is a mark o{ the school of dramatists that their plays are worth reading as well as watching. Imagine sitting down to read through a melodrama or a musical comedy'. Stripped of their scenic effects, their limelight, their dresses, how thin, how unreal they scorn at once. To read them through would bore you very quickly. Not so with a piny that has intellectual power. The dialogues are interesting because they present you with ideas. The clever' people in the play interest you by their clever talk, and tho dull ones by the clever way in which the author makes them express themselves in all their limitations. I'he conversations are the great charm of 'The Madras House.' You can enjoy them in the library without your attention being distracted as to how each scene is going to fit in with the others, and what will happen to tho various characters. On the stage the action of the play naturally occupies more of your attention, and in "this respect ' The Madras House' is apt to leave you disappointed, for nothing tit particular happens, and the play just talks itself out, so to speak. But when the scenes are before you on the printed page you can enjoy each for it« own sake. The first act v is a brilliant little humorous picture, of bourgeois life in a London upper middle-class home, the scene is Denmark Hill, but similar homes are appallingly I plentiful in Norwood, South Kensington, |Bayswater, and other "comfortable" London suburbs. I can testify to the faithful

p i- , v ■ -. > ■ > ■ i i. ness of the portrait. One knows those drawing roorrw which are nothing but family museums of furniture, with a giltclook under a dome of glass, and a picture from some Academy Exhibition of the early seventies entitled 'ln Ye Olden. Time.' One has met the Huxtable family under other names, and pitied the long string of unmarried daughters, leading empty, pur- . poseless lives in docile subjection to the, tyranny of the, hprae. ' Too genteel to work ] for a living, they do not understand themeaning of. independence. Any faint aspirations in that direction are promptly crushed by parentul authority, which rules the home with the if on rod of Convention An extract from the play shows the timid* outlook on life to be found in such homes—the cages of society.:— , Philip: Are you all happy now, then? ■ T ■ ,'... Emma : Oh, deep down, I think wo are. It would be so ungrateful not to be BOi When one has a good name V'and . . • But, of course, living together and going away together and being together all the time, one docs get a little irritable now and then. I suppose that's why wo sit as mum as' maggots when people are here; we re afraid of squabbling. . . . Philip : But what occupations have you girls? Emma : We're always busy. I mean, there'© lots to be done about the house, and there's calling and classes and things. Julia used to'sketch quite, well. You" mustn't think I'm grumbling, Philip. I know I talk too much. They tell me so. V Philip's comment is the question, half serious— Philip : Why don't you go away, all six of you—or, say. five erf you? Emma (wide-eyed) : Go away ? K Philip (comprehensively) : Out of it. Emma (wider-eyed) : Where to? Philip (with a sigh—for her) : Ah, that's just it. Emma: How could one? .And it would upset them dreadfully. Father.and mother don't know that ono feels like this at times. . . . They'd bo very grieved. Philip turns to her with kindly irony. Philip : Emma, peoplo have boon worrying your father at the shop lately about the drawbacks of the living-i.r system. Why don't you ask him to look at homo for them? Needless to say, none of the Miss Huxtables did ran away. It is only an occasional Ann Veronica, like Mr H. G. Wells' 6 young lady, who has the courage to escape from the Denmark Hill cage in an imconventional way; and the Huxtable girls were not Ann Veronicas. The second act gives a fine study of shop life in a London drapery house, with the evil effects of the living-in system

shown in painful' yet comic intensity. There is Mr Brigetock, third man in the hosiery department. Our author sums him np thus: " The position of third man in the hosiery doee not require any special talente, and it doesn't get them; I or if it does, they don't stay there. And | Mr Brigstock ' stays there—just stays i there. It sums him up—sums up millions ! of him—to 6ay that m their youth they have energy enough to get into a position; afterwards, in their terror—or sometimes only because their employers have not tho heart to dismiss thorn—they stay there. Sometimes, though, the employers have the heart, and do. And then what happens?" Mrs Brigstock. "tho Eroduct of fifteen years or so of long ours and little lunch"; Mi6s Yates, tho rebel of the establishment, whom "you look at as you look at a fire or a light in an otherwise empty room"; Miss Chancellor, the dragon of a housekeeper — I each of thee© personalities is vividly sketched in the conversation in which they take part in this finely-fashioned act. With the third act two especially interesting characters come on the scone. One is Mr State, a sontimental American millionaire financier, who sees poetry in lumber and canned peaches. Mr State's conversation is a sheer delight. He wants to buy the Madras House, a big drapery concern, and this is how he mingles sentiment with finance : M.- State (soaring): It is the Middleclass Woman of England that is waiting for me—the woman who sits at tho parlor window' of her provincial villa pensively gazing through the laurel bushes. I have seen her on my solitary walks. Shs must have her chance to dazzle and conquer. That is every woman's birthright ... be she a <t duchess in Mayfair or a doctor's wife in the suburbs of Leicester. And remem beiy gentlemen, that tho Middle-class Women of England ... think of them in bulk . . . they form one of the greatest money-spending machines ■■" the world has ever seen. Mr Huxtable (with a wag of the head ; he is more at his ease now): Yes . . . their husband's money. Mr State (taking a long breath and a high tone) : All our most advanced thinkers are agreed that the economic independence or women, is the next step in the march of civilisation. Mr Huxtable (overwhelmed): Oh . . . I beg pardon. Tho outstanding figure in the play, however, is Constantino Madras, a man cf sixty, tall, quite dramatically dignified, suave, a little remote. Constantino has accepted the Oriental view of life and of women, and has settled in Arabia and become a Moslem. He talks brilliantly against Western ideas. He contends that ah politics, all religion, is being " brought

down itothe level of women's emotion)" and that the effect is softening, sentimentalising, enervating. It is lapping the .world in the' nursery cotton wool of prettiness and pettiness. Justice degenerates into kindness, i Religion is a pretty hymn tune to keep ub from fear of the dark. With a full appreciation of what he says, Constantino proceeds:— Women,., haven't morals or intellect in our sense of tho words. They have other incompatible qualities quile as important, no doubt. But shut them away from public life and public exhibition. It's degrading to compete with them . . . it's degrading to compete for them. Perhaps we're too late already . . . but, oh, dear sentimental sir (he addresses the pained though admiring Mr State), if we could replant the laurel Tbushes thick enough, wo might yet* rediscover the fine manly

world we are losing. Constantines remedy, apparently, is polygamy. . To the horrified Mr Huxtable, the gentleman with six unmarried daughters, he suggests that it would be much pleasanter for him, much happier for them, if ono man could be found who would marry the lot! The fourth and last act brings us to a discussion, between a cultured young couple with modern ideas, on the price we pay for such high products of civilisation as the perfect ladv, dainty in mind and body, fastidious, charming, delicate, sheltered from and shaming the world's ugliness and strife. Is she worth the cost of her breeding, worth the toil and helotage of—all the others? Perhaps. But can we satisfied with an art and culture which are a veneer on savagery? These are problems which Philip Madras discusses with his wife, and we leave him—inconclusively—»till facing them. It is a fine play, a witty play, and a play to make one think.—London correspondent.