MANAGES A THEATRE.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 29 June 1938, Page 6

MANAGES A THEATRE.

SYDNEY WOMAN’S SUCCESS “I liked the idea of an actormanager,” is Miss Kathleen Robinson’s modest explanation of how she came to be an actor-manager in London. It if; a story of live years of progress that is as romantic as any novel. Miss Eobinson went to England in 1930 after spending her girlhood in Australia, where her father, the late Matthew Robinson, owned station property at Bourke and Wyalong. Three years later Miss Eobinson returned to Sydney with Dame Sybil Thorudyke’s company after a course of study at the Eoyal Academy of Dramatic Art, but always with the idea of an actor-manager’s work in her mind. “A lot of the new people in the theatrical world wer not so interested in anything that was not moneymaking,” Miss Robinson said, when she was interviewed in Sydney. “With an actor-manager the company is like one big family and, I think, does much better work. In London and Scandinavia.

“With many people who hud similar i ideas of my own, 1, embarked on Westminster Miss Robinson toutinued. “Wo took the Westminster theatre for a year to run repertory productions —new plays and a few revivals. We opened with Hugh Ross Williams’ ‘Rose and Glove,’ then followed 'Moon in the Y’ellow River/ which was an immediate success and went to the West End. Other new plays and Shakespearean revivals followed, and our success held. But at the end of the year, when our lease was up, the owner wanted his theatre back.” Then Miss Eobinson took over the productions at the New People’s Palace in the East End, and discovered that Shakespeare was most popular. Two months in Scandinavia followed, and Miss Robinson and another member of the Westminster productions company were made members of the Latvian Theatre at Riga. Of eighteen productions at this theatre fourteen were of Shakespeare’s plays.

Shaw Popular in Scandinavia. Next year Miss Robinson hopes to take another company to Scandinavia where Shaw is always popular. “Shaw himself attended the rehearsal of the Westminster company’s production of his play, 'Arms and the Man’,” said Miss Eobinson. “He was very critical, and acted all the parts himself to show us how it .should be done. But he was a perfect joy. “Later I joined Ronald Adams at the Embassy, which is definitely a 'tryout’ theatre,” Miss Eobinson said. w We try the plays out for fourteen days and if they are a success we take them to the West End, or others do.

"We revived Barrie’s ‘Kiss for Cinderella at Christmas with Glynnis Johns in the lead,” continued Miss Robinson. ‘‘She is only fourteen years of age, and has definitely a future as an actress. She has just finished in a film, ‘South Riding,’ where she played a child’s part with distinction.

"In England, more than in the U.S.A., there is an interchange of stage and screen actors. Mr. Adams appears in films, but I have never been in a studio, ’ ’ she said smiling.