KEEN THEATRE-GOERS

Evening Star, Issue 18714, 16 August 1924, Page 3

KEEN THEATRE-GOERS

ACTOR ON COLONIAL AUDIENCES. MR BOUCICAULT REMINISCENT, In the opinion of Mr Dion Boucicault, the famous actor, a Melbourne audience and a Manchester audience are the two finest before which ho has played. He finds a good standard of taste in the colonies generally, but ho specially picks out Melbourne for discrimination. “ Keen, alert, receptive, I find them,’ he said to an Auckland ‘Star 1 reporter, “and I think their judgment is extremely good. My impression is that if you give an Australasian or a New Zealand audience the best yon can, in the best way yon know, I have never known them not to appreciate it.” lie was asked whether a long series of cheap American plays had detrimentally affected the taste of tlm theatregoers. 'Mr Boucicault is in a singularly jjood position to give an opinion, ns ne was closely connected with the comma stage in the past, then was absent tor many years, and now comes back once more, so that any change in the character of his audience would be bound to strike him in a way that it would not strike many other people. Now Zea.und plavgoers will always have a keen regard for the name of Boucicault, for scores oi grown-ups that had never seen him were perfectly familiar with the Brough and Boucicault” tradition. In any reminiscent talk of the palmy days of the theatre old playgoers would always wind up with, “Ah, but you should have seen the Brough and Boucicault Company. THE “B. and b.” days. Mr Boucicault said he found tlmd colonial audinccs care for the best l ie references to the old Brough and Bouacault days people are kind enough to re call show that the taste has new deteriorated. It was a very fine company, with some actors and actresses of outstanding ability, who put things on as well as they could possibly be put on m those davs, and evidently them efforts have borne fruit in Australia and New Zealand, even after the lapse of all those yC « Jo," ho went on, “I think the mistake a great many theatrical managers make is in not giving the best of every thing. They think that an audience is satisfied with mediocre plays and players, but that is ridiculous. My experience is, •give them the best of and in the best possible manner of which you *re capable, and the public will always

respond magnificently. For instance, in Melbourne and Sydney wq did what could not bo done in any other part of tho world; wo played for six months I Why, we could not havo played six weeks m any other place of the same size in any: other country.” It, was suggested that In tie oolonle®' money was more generally plentiful than' iu some of the older countries. j “ Not only that, even if it be so,” Baid.j Mr Boucicault, "you are much keener on,] the theatre. I never saw anything like it .j You are keener on the theatre, and you-i are a more amusementrloving people. Io : fact, sometimes one wonders whether you are not too much so. Races every other day, and so on. I should have thought; that it would have to he curbed somoM what, because you cannot build up a n*G tion purely on pleasure-loving oomraunii | tMS ’ BLAME THE CLIMATE i “ Of course, the explanation of that In, generally given as the climate,” was gested to Mr Boucicault. j “Maybe,” admitted tho actor, and,then, musingly: “I think it will be very' interesting when wo of to-day are ail dead and gone to see exactly what influence climate will havo on the Anglo-Saxon race in these parts. Even since I first came to Sydney in 1885 I (havo been, studying the people, and X notice after coming back once more that they havo developed an entirely outdoor type in the intervening generations, and the tendency seems to bo to do as little work as possible and get as much as yon can for it. And, except in rather rare instances, tier© seems to be no desire to give supremely finished work.”

Something Mr Boucicault added induced ins interviewer to remark, 11 But you dou t despair of us out here? ” “Despair? Good gracious, no I” "was his enthusiastic reply. >’l think the Australians and New Zealanders are wonderful 1 You are young people, however, and must take care. I noticed Ibis carc-frco way of looking on life more in Sydney than in Melbourne, which makes mo think the more enervating climate of the coastal districts of NewSouth Wales really does have a marked effect on the people. In Melbourne you get more of a Puritanical—no, that is hardly the word, perhaps I should say Nonconformist —outlook. No Sunday newspapers, no Sunday trains, no smoking in certain places, no Sunday, lawn tennis, end so on. There you have none of the freeloving way of living that you have with, the Sydney people. Of course, Melbourne has not the wonderful call to outdoors that Sydney has—the harbor and surroundings; ‘but still there is this marked difference. Personally, lam convinced that, it is entirely duo to the climate. Wfcftt) will bo the ‘result in the years to come? It is, of course, impossible to conjecture y but still the question is one' that mailed one think.”