KNIGHT'S CREDO

Evening Star, Issue 23729, 9 November 1940, Page 7

KNIGHT'S CREDO

COMMENTS ON HIS RETIREMENT CRITICS SLATE ‘ SIGN OF THE CROSS ' FURTHER RECOLLECTIONS OF DUNEDIN THEATRE [By Loiterer.J xxn. Hugli D. MTntosh’s Tivoli Follies played, from August 12, 1915. Comedian Jack Cannot was one of the company, and he was in his best form. One of his specialties on this visit was the impersonation of Harry Lauder in Scottish song and humour, an interlude which was greatly appreciated. Others were Isabelle D’Arnaud, the million dollar American girl comedienne,_ who wasn’t worth anything like a million dollars in Dunedin; .Alfredo, the “ vagabond violinist ” ; Yakovlenko, Russian whirlwind dancer.

An echo of the war was contained in ‘ The Man Who Stayed at Home,’ played on October 6. A tale of the Secret Service, it contained plenty of action and excitement, and in a year in which plays were few and far between it enjoyed a good run._ Frank Harvey, the male lead, came with a considerable reputation as an actor, and he did not let his public down; Violet Paget,

the leading woman, was correspondingly good. Leslie Victor contrived to effect a most delightful German accent, maintaining it well throughout. Victor, incidentally, had a good reputation as a character player, Arthur Cornell was the comedian of the piece. In ‘ The Girl in the Taxi,’ offered on October 23, honours went to George Franklyn as Alexis, the waiter, his portrait standing out. Violet Collinson was very good as Suzanne, being audacious and spirited, while the rest of the company, which included D. B. O’Connor, Will Slattery, Cliff Palmer, Ida Leggatt, Maurice (Rosenthal, and Frank flaming, all did satisfactory work. This comedy was particularly well mounted. 'POTASH AND PERLMUTTER.’ The play year closed with the American comedy, ‘ Potash and Perlmutter,’ on December 11. It was a show which genuinely offered continuous laughter, and it met with a ready response from the public. Indeed, it was said at the time that no show had been so spontaneously received since the middle ’sixties,, a sweeping assertion which may have been due to the lack of this type of comedy for so long and the readiness of people to have their thoughts diverted from the great conflict in Europe, The story was described as being “ original, and as ethically sound as the general epistle of St. James.” It did not unfairly poke fun at Jews. Paul Burns as Abe Potash, and Sam Le Bert as Maurice Perlmutter (pronounced, in his idiom, “ Mawruss Perlmoiter ”) were excellent comedians whose one fault was a tendency to talk at speed. Generally the'American accent was not heavy. VAUDEVILLE YEAR. Almost continuous vaudeville under Fuller and Fuller-Brcnnan management was staged in the Princess, and two revue companies wore in residence for a considerable period. The first of these was Stanhope’s American Revue Company, a bright and / breezy company possessed of considerable drawing power. Most of the performers, including Paul Stanhope, Fritzee de Guy, Ruby Kennedy, Frank Norton, Harry Ross, Reginald Herbert, and Leo Bates, were talented people, all artists in their own fields. Under Ben Fuller’s direction Elton Black’s revue introduced this now familiar Scottish comedian; but Black—despite his Scottish nationality—has never been a draw here. Cliff O’Keefe, Kate Howarde, and Harry Quealy were with him.

Individualists included Wong Toy Sun, a particularly clever Chinese magician; Les Wharton, coon comedian; Phil. Smith, temporarily broken away from musical comedy; the Four Acrobatic Lesters, really clever gymnasts, who in one act were suspended by the toes, 30ft above the headsmf the orchestra. in which comfortable position they played instruments, keeping perfect time with the orchestra; Victor the Great, another clover illusionist; Alsace and Lorraine, who played better class music on a variety of instruments ; Clarence Lutes, who, minus arms or legs, showed amazing accuracy with a rifle, and gave a completely unorthodox exhibition of carpentry; Nat Hanley, whistling pianist, making his first of very many appearances; .Miss Eugene Boland, Queensland contralto, remembered for her singing of ‘ Little Grey Home in the West ’ ; Herbert Brookes, yet another mystifier; Ward Lear, comedian, Amy Murphy, one-time Dunedin's local idol, in routine with Nellie Black, and so on. DOLDRUMS passing. The doldrums which had affected the Dunedin theatre in the previous four years began to nfove away in 1916, but it was not for all that a particularly heavy year as regards the stage. Even vaudeville at the Princess was not continuums. Advantage was taken of the quietness to renovate both the Princess i

and His Majesty’s, there being fairly extensive changes in the interior appointments of the latter, at a cost ol £5,000. The first offering was in February, when, on the 16th, a Williamson Comic Opera Company put on ‘ The Dancing Mistress,’ following it witli ‘ Our Miss Gibbs,’ ‘ The Quaker Girl,’ and ‘ Ala Alic Rosette.’ Only the first was now to Dunedin, and it did not go down on tho records as anything out of the way. Phil Smith gave a. very good impersonation of Widdicombe, a butler, while Afinnie Love made a minor hit in her impersonations of Harry Lauder, her most successful song being ‘ I'm Havin’ a Richt Guid Time.’ Claude Bantock, Leslie Holland, Ethel Cadman, Maggie Aloore, Vera Pain, Vick AJillar, and Elsie Stevenson were a few others. In aid of Serbian relief Dorothea Spinney gave recitals from Greek tragedies in the Burns Hall on March 1. Her opening recital was Professor Gilbert Murray’s translation of the Hoppolytus of Euripedes, and, like all her pieces, was delivered with sweetness and simplicity. Some of the audience, however, wondered what it all meant. Paul Saldaigne, the Belgian tenor, formerly a grand opera singer, gave a concert, supported by his pupils, in His Majesty’s on April 4. Scones were presented from ‘ Samson and Delilah ’ and ‘ Cavalleria Rusticana.’ A week later the Choral Society staged Elgar’s ‘ King Olaf,’ Sidney Wolf conducting. Pan) Dufault sang in His Majesty’s on the 24th, supported by Pauline Bindley (soprano), Florence Scapini (violin), and Harold Whittle (piano). It was a very fine concert, and Dufault’s considerable reputation was greatly oil - hanced. He gave a further recital ■. June. JULIUS KNIGHT’S FINAL. Julius Knight’s final appearance oc curred on May 18, when lie presented ‘ Under Fire,’ a war story. _As His Alajesty’s was closed at the time, the play was put on in the Princess, which was not unappropriato, in as much as Knight made his first Dunedin appearance in tho High street theatre, as Marcus Superbus in ‘ The Sign of the Cross,’ in 1897. So ho made his debut and his farewell in the same hall. ‘ Under Fire ’ was a surface play, one suitable only for the time. It served in some measure to bring home the horror and fiendishuess of the conflict raging in Europe, and was well staged. Knight had a poor part as Captain Larry Redmond, but he made as much of the part as it was possible to do. Knight retired, from the stage shortly after this visit, and to-day is comfortably settled down in Hull, occasionally taking a little jaunt to tho south of France—or it would be more correct to say ho did so before the present war broke out. On the eve of departing from Australia Knight expounded his artistic credo. It could be summed up in the very old sentence, “By their works shall ye know them ”; in other words, no aptor has succeeded who is known as a personality rather than by and in the parts he played. “ The test as to whether I succeeded in my work here,” Air Knight said, “ will be whether the memory of the characters I played facie from the public mind with my going.” I AN IMPOSSIBLE SUCCESS. Of course, Mr Knight hoped for an impossible success. Although he had, been before the theatre-going public of Australia and New Zealand for probably more years than any other leading man, he was no more likely than anyone else to be remembered by the parts he played. Experience has proven that roles fade as an actor becomes more intimately known. That is shown by the Hollywood star system. People will go to see Paul Muni, Charles Laughton, Norma Shearer, Buck Jones, or any ono of tho countless actors today, not because of the part, but because of tho player. It is true, of

course; that in exceptional circumstances, a part may be recalled whore the name of the play is forgotten, but that is the exception which invariably proves the rule. It was perhaps as well for Knight’s reputation that his personal gift of flamboyant self-expression is remembered when his roles are forgotten, since in the latter he js most closely associated in the public: mind with the fustian histrionics of Marcus Supcrlms in ‘ The Sign of the Cross.’ He is hardly remembered for such good work as the brilliant, high-toned portrait of “ The Rat ” in ‘ The Breed of the Treshains,’ or oilier lino character portrayals, work which revealed the actor more than the decorative Marcus Suoerhus. But his name lives on. and it occupies an honourable niche in the a flections and esteem of playgoers who saw him on this side of the world. PILLORYING * THE SIGN OF THE CROSS.’ Reference above to ‘ The Sign of the Cross,’ a plav which has had phenomenal successes on the stage, and. which has been mounted on the screen ns a super spectacle more than once at the hands of men like Cecil B. De Mille, recalls that when Wilson Barrett (the playwright) first presented it in London the highbrow critics had a field day ami slated the new production right and left. Despite this, the public took

it to its heart. There was at the time something of a religious revival sweeping England, and this brutal talo of the persecution of Christians in ancient llome received! strong support from revivalists, and, in large measure, from the ordinary clergyman. Not one of the leading critics had a kind word to say about the play, and even George Bernard Shaw jeered at it (but perhaps that could be expected!). Mr William Archer, one of the leading critics of the time, waxed exceedingly caustic, as this extract from his critique reveals: —

“ No, my dear Mr Wilson Barrett, I am not going to play up to you by criticising, discussing, or even -ridiculing ‘ The Sign of the Cross.’ It lies quito outside my province. Tb'o art critic does not chronicle the latest addition to Madame Tussand’s Chamber of Horrors; the musical critic takes no cognisance of a Salvationist orgy; why should the dramatic critic devote a moment's thought to a combination of the penny dreadful and the Sunday school picture book? . . . The thing is an astute and apparently successful attempt to make capital out of that halfhearted hankering after the stage which has of late become an almost inseparable characteristic of your liberalminded cleric. Many managers have contrived to get local and temporary advertisement out of the vanity and inexperience of some would-bo churchman, who has thought himself greatly daring in taking his white choker to the theatre; but it has been reserved for Mr Wilson Barrett to work the oracle on a grand, systematic, international scale. Having no reasonable standard of comparison the simple-minded padres, like children at their first pantomime, do not recognise the pretentions puerility, the hideous vulgarity of the whole thing, and set to work dutifully to heat the pulpit, drum ecclesiastic, at the door of ,Mr Barrett’s booth.

I “A Salvationist pantomime—that defines tbe show. There ought really to b.o a harlequinade, in which Mare us Superbus, transformed into the clown, should throw dust into the eyes of the clergyman, who would, of course, for the nonce, replace the policeman of tradition. 1 don’t know that I am constitutionally apt to over-rate the popular intelligence, but certainly I was taken aback by the frenzied enthusiasm with which the pit and gallery received this farrago of crudities and ineptitudes. At first I doubted the genuineness of tho demonstrations, and of course, I do not vouch for it even now. But I studied pretty closely the two first rows of tho pit, which appeared to bo filled, not only with paying playgoers, but with people of by no means the stupidest and lowest class. I have at this moment a vision of a woman’s face, rather refined and pleasing in repose, converted into one cavernous mouth, like that of a lion (poor thing!) who was supposed to be devouring Mr Wilson Barrett behind the scenes, as she vociferated her rapture at the close of the performance. It was a depressing spectacle. “ Miss Maud Jefferies, who played the heroine, has a beautiful face and a tall and graceful figure. She reminded me strongly of Miss Mary Anderson. Of her powers as an actress I could form no estimate.’ BUT BARRETT MADE MONEY. Does the harshness of critics matter? Here is one instance where it seems it does not, for the play was not only an amazing success on that first run, but it proved oven more so on subsequnt presentations by Barrett, or anyone else who cared to present it. When Barrett put it on in the first place, he was very much in debt, but not only did the play reverse his financial posi-

tion to an extent whereby he was abla to wipe out £40,000 in debts, but it also placed him well on the road u» leaving an estate valued at £57,000. (To be continued.)