AMUSEMENTS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2586, 21 August 1909, Page 3 (Supplement)

AMUSEMENTS.

HIS MAJESTY’S, LOCAL FIXTURES. Nightly,—Pa tho Pictures. August 23, 24.—Mrs Katherine Lent Stevenson, W.C.T..U, Lecturer. September 1,2, 3. —Scottish Covenanters. September 21, 22., 23.-. —J. C. Williamson. The first complete change of programme of tho Path-© Pictures will be given at the matinee this afternoon, and at to-night’s entertainment. Included in the Pictures will be the famous football picture, played recently in Sydney, between the All-Blacks and the Kangaroos. Other pictures will be “Napoleon and the Sailor.’’ “'The Margarine Industry in Denmark,” “Venice in a Gondola,”' and a host of humorous films.

Mr C. Spencer, of Sydney, has received a cable from London stating that ho has secured the Commonwealth and New Zealand rights of the biograph films taken during Lieutenant Shackleton’s Antarctic expedition.

“Beauty is important,” says David Belasco, “but not essential.. The most talented women of the stage —Rachel, Bernhardt, Clara Morris, Duse, and others — were not beautiful, but their genius made the audience forget the fact.”

In all probability Miss Bettx; Olds, the “Merrymaker,” “Merry Widow,” and present - principal girl of the “Jack and Jill” company, will leave shortly for Sydney, en route to England, where there is a prospect of her going on at the leading halls.

With a stocking full of American dollars, and tho determination to quit the stage and “make her eyes behave,” Anna Held, in every-day life Mrs. Florence Ziegfeld, recently left New York for Europe. Before leaving she announced that, having made £200,000, she would retire from the stage after next season.

The theatres have a great attraction for the present Princess of Wales, and once she was referred to by King Edward as “our musical and dramatic critic.” It is largely upon her report that other members of the royal family decide whether to visit a certain play or not, and particularly is this the case with the King and Queen.

Melbourne spends more money on amusements than any other city in Australia, or for that matter any cit v of its size in the world. When the King’s Theatre was built, people shook their heads and said .there would not be sufficient patrons to go round, but they wore wrong, and now Mr. J. T. West, who ha 6 made a pot of money out of moving pictures, is erecting another at a cost of £6OOO io hold 4000 people not far from Olympia on St Ivilda-road.

The Reorganised Williamson Dramatic Co., recently interrupted in a run of “The Flag Lieutenant” by the fire at Her Majesty’s, Sydney, will probahh- tour New Zealand in January next. The repertoire will include “The Flag Lieutenant,” “The Cheat,” “Via Mireless,” and a revival of “Brewster; s Millions.” The company will include Messrs Thos. Kingston, G. S. Titheradge, Cyril Maekay, Harry Plimmer, ss Dorothy Grimston, Miss Ethel Warwick, and Miss Emma Temple,

Mr. J. C. Williamson is at present in London. Au Australian exchange there says: “He will make, with Mr. Frohman, a special production of r \\ 7 hat Every Woman Knows,’ and Mr. Frohman proposes to send Mr. Williamson next Easter a full English .company —wholly recruited here — to play &R the dramas that Mr. Frohman will produce in England and America during the coming season. So, wbat with the new repertory theatres, Mr, Frokman’s season of c strOfig human drama, with a number of provincial tours, and the formation of this company for Australia, things should be bright for ‘the profession’ next year.”

There are still fortunes to be made in plays, and there ®re still plenty of managers—present managers and prospective managers —who aro anxious to assist playwrights to make them. Miss Hilda Spbng—an English actress, who made her theatrical debut in Australia, scored a number of successes in Londoir in such widely-diversified plays as “The Two Little Vagabonds” and "Trelawuey of the Wells,” and afterwards achieved distinction in the States—was in London a "few weeks ago in search of suitable plays for a forthcoming theatrical venture.

A distressing calamity has befallen Cinquevalli. His wonderfully clever comedian assistant has suddenly gone insane in Sydney. Epilepsy befel Valter a few days ago, and he was placed in an asylum under medical instructions as a hopelessly insane case. After which ho put the strength of las' sympathetic boss to an exciting test, for, having escaped from a private asylum, he was discovered by Cinquevalli, who’ tried to take him quietly in hand. The madman turned on the juggler, but the skilful strong man mastered him at last. Walter was assistant for Cinquevalli for more than ten years, and before that was dresser to Bert Gilbert.

I think there ought to ho some sort of time limit after which actors should be debarred from portraying “Hamlet” (writes a “Bulletin” correspondent). The Walter Bentley Hamlet who has just faded from Sydney was palpably not a minute under 45. There aro some clothes that men in middle life cannot wear with dignity; som© phrases that they may not employ if they are to side-step tlio snigger of the ribald gallery ite. The clothes of Hamlet and many of his speeches'afford examples in point. The melancholy one was meant bv Shakespeare to he 30 'years of age. The First Clown fixes ii .He dates the eruption into the grave-digging profession from “the very day that young Hamlet was horn” ; and lie (the clown) has been at tlio job, he intimates later, “man and boy 30 years.” It is.useless to protend that Bentley carries off the part of Hamlet convincingly. Were the regulation I advocate in force 1 ,: lie would have ceased from troubling m this essentially youthful rolo a full decade since.