FOOTLIGHT FLASHES

Evening Star, Issue 20510, 14 June 1930, Page 22

FOOTLIGHT FLASHES

[By LOITEIiER.]

The Allan Wilkie Shakespearean Company has been exempted from the amusement tax in New South Wales. Edna Leedom, a star in one of the Shubert shows, threw up her engagement recently without notice to become the wife of an heir to brewery millions, states a Sydney ‘ Sun ’ cable from New York. Announcing that they had stood a lot of that kind of thing, the Shuberts interrupted Edna’s honeymoon by serving papers for £IO,OOO damages for leaving the show in the lurch. Muriel Starr got an unconditional discharge in her bankruptcy case states a Sydney theatregoer. Her liabilities were £3,427, £2,622 of which were owed to J.C.W., and her assets were £3O odd. The firm’s shareholders can solace themselves with the reflection, however, that Miss Starr in her heydey was the second biggest moneymaker they ever had. The biggest was Julius Knight. Michael Cole, who is the Prince Danilo of Gladys Moncrieff’s revival of the ‘ Merry Widow,’ has played in many notable London successes, including ‘ Rose Marie,’ and was associated with Marie Burke, Howett Worster, and Dorothy Lena in the London production of ‘ Show Boat.’ Mr Cole is an Englishman, who fought alongside the Anzacs; ho was a brilliant organist and pianist until a bullet through the wrist ended the possibilities of an instrumental career. Mr D’Oyly Carte, the eminent opera producer, heard Mr Cole sing in London and advised him to take up the stage as a career. William Faversham, the famous ■actor who is now appearing in Australia under the J, C. Williamson regime, has a high appreciation of the intelligence of overseas audiences. He has had a wonderful reception in Australia, and has accentuated his successes in England and the United States, and has proved himself to bo one of the foremost actors in the world. Famous as a producer, he is noted for his attention to detail, and in this all-im-portant essential has set a remarkably high standard. In the theatrical world of the big capitals, the 1 name of Faversh'am is one to conjure with. Some of his great characters have been the leading roles in ‘ Sowing the Wind,’ ‘The Masquerader,’ ‘The Importance of Being Earnest,’ * Under the Red Robe’ °Phroso,’ ‘Brother Officers,’ ‘Lord and Lady Algy,’ ‘Diplomacy,’ ‘ The Squaw Man,’ ‘ The Hawk,’ and many others.

on the people of flic Stage and Screen and on the latest recorded Music*

Tho revolt of women in the theatre seems to bo in full career (says an exchange). We have Helen Hayes appearing in America to act a play in which there are nineteen women and no man, and which is to have a woman director, while in London the Lyceum Club, which has a membership of 10,000 women, is backing tho production of ‘ Nine Till Six,’ which is to be acted by a cast of women. Gladys Moncrieff’s venture as an enterpreneur was aired in a Melbourne court when sundry dissatisfied actors sued her for a week’s pay in lieu of notice alleged not to have been given, states an Australian paper. The judge dismissed the case; ho might have added a rider on the fickleness of tho theatre-going public. Miss Moncrieif could not have done more to keep her company in continuous employment. Her first play included a leper, whoso face was realistically made up to suggest that half of it wasn’t there. Ho roamed through two acts and the bowels of a Zeppelin endeavouring to infect tho passengers and crew. In Miss Moncrieff’s second artistic choice a gorilla, howling and gnashing its teeth, pursued members of tho cast about the auditorium. Yet the season was a failure. Tho visit of the Gonsalez Opera Company under the Fuller management seems to have increased tho population of Australia more than any other theatrical venture, writes a correspondent to the Sydney ‘Bulletin.’ One of its baritones now serves fish over a counter in Fitzroy, and a tenor drives a taxicab in Sydney. I was passing a seaside store in Victoria with a friend the other day when a very beautiful voice singing one of Gilda’s arias from Rigoletto ’ was wafted through a fly-net. My friend said it was a loud speaker, but I bet him it was human. And so it proved. The owner was a pretty little eighteeu-year-old Italian maiden who had entered domestic service, and whom 1 had last seen across tho footlights. Many of the company were anti-Fas-cists, which may account for their nonreturn to Italy. Herbert Leigh, an accomplished actor now playing with William Faversham in ‘ The' Hawk,’ may be seen in New Zealand before long. Ho is known to many, residents of the dominion. Before he played under engagement to J. C. Williamson, Ltd., he had many successful seasons in South Africa, and while quite young appeared in Capo Town, Durban, Johannesburg, Kimberley, and Pretoria.

Sybil Thorndike will be Emilia in the Maurice Browne production of Shakespeare’s ‘ Othello,’ with Paul Robeson (the negro actor and singer) in the name part, at the Globe Theatre, London. Peggy Ashcroft, Maurice Browne, and Max Montesole will also bo in the cast, as Desdemona, lago, and Cassio respectively. Mr Browne first produced ‘ Journey’s End.’ Madame Florence Austral, returning to the concert platform of her own country, at the Sydney Town Hall on Saturday night (May 24), proved emphatically her title to distinction by her individuality, versatility, and magnetic qualities, no less than by the beauty of her voice (wrote a Sydney critic). Madame Austral has a great voice, possessing strength, volume, and appealing quality. It dazzled by its magnificence in the amazing flights of Brunnhilde’s ‘ Battle Cry ’ and the almost equally thrilling declamation of the ‘ Hymn to the Sun ’ of Alexandre Georges or the climax to the ‘ Caecilie ’of Richard Strauss. Then, reduced to the subtlest mezza_ voce, it crooned exquisitely the poetic ‘Morgen’ of Strauss and the dainty ‘Tes Yeux ’ of Rabey. In these brilliant contrasts the star soprano revealed in a new light the reason for her distinguished successes in England and America. Wilhelm Backhaus, tho world-famous pianist who is making his second tour of Australia and New Zealand under the direction of E. J. _ Gravestock, Ltd., has instilled new life into the musical world of Australia with the remarkable success of his Sydney season. It is estimated that over 22,0U0 people have attended these recitals. At tho opening recital a large audience gathered to welcome Backhaus, and full houses have been the rule since. Mr Gravestock announces that Backhaus’s New Zealand tour will commence in the Auckland Town Hall on July 3, with recitals also on July 5 and July 8. Edgar Wallace and two well-known jockeys, Steve Donoghue and Michael Beary, made their stage “debuts” at the revival of the Wallace play, ‘ Tho Calender.’ Mr Wallace asked the two jockeys if they would, as a joke, walk on as part of the crowd in the Ascot scene. They consented—on condition that the author joined them! So, with the large audience in complete ignorance, Mr Wallace, disguised, by a large grey moustache, and Donoghue and Beary in jockeys’ habit, all solemnly walked on and did their bit.