DRAMATIC GOSSIP.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 8756, 1 April 1889, Page 3

DRAMATIC GOSSIP.

When last heard of, the CrawfordHunter Company were in Wanganui, playing a short season. The Fisk Jubilee Singers have reached Auckland, whore, at the City Hall, on March 19, they gave the first of their farewell concerts in New Zealand.

The Vivian Company, which recently arrived from Australia, opened at Abbott’s Opera House, Auckland, on March 16, in Current Cash, a spectacular drama, which (says the "Star”) "is intensely interesting. The incidents of the drama are well conceived and powerfully wrought out, and the dramatis personal being well cast, the audience, instead of exhibiting any evidence of weariness, werehig hlyenthusiastictbrovighout.” The leading characters were taken by Messrs W. G. Carey, 11. Jerdan, Arthur Vivian, F. Bateman, W. J. Bcresford, and Newton, and the Misses Helen Vivian, Rose Andrews, Christina Tennyson, and Marie Wiltoa. Other characters were represented by Mesrs J. Thorne, Maynard, J. Doran, L. Harcourt, T. Gordon, H. Belton, Roberts, Crowley, and Keats. The piece baa been received with great favour, and was to he kept on the boards for a week. Missing at Lloyd’s being announced as the next production. The Directors of the Napier Theatre Royal Company have (says the " Herald”) imported three seta of a very ingenious contrivance for registering the money paid and the tickets sold at places of public amusement. The invention, which is an English one, consists of two, boxes to each set. One is a tall and narrow one, and the other of a equarer form. The first holds the tickets, which are of metal, and contained m two hollow columns extending the length of the box, which is locked when the supply of tickets is placed in position, and the arrangement is then placed in charge of the employee in the pay-box. To release a ticket he must move a small projecting handle, thus shooting one ticket from a slit at the bottom of a box, and at the same time a tell-tale in the side, on the same principle as the totalisator, registers the release of the ticket. The other box is placed in charge of the ticket-taker, who drops each ticket received through a slit setting at work a recording apparatus similar to that described. The whole contrivance is most ingenious, and at the same time free from complications likely to get out of order. The three sets will provide a check for each entrance to the theatre.

The last performance of Pernta at the Melbourne Princess’ Theatre was given on March 15. On the following evening two operas were given, viz., Erminie and Cellier’s Charity Begins at Home. Mr Frank Lincoln commenced the last week of his Melbourne season on March IS, the season being curtailed on account of his ill-health. Mr Lincoln has been giving entertainments uninterruptedly since December last, and the strain of such long-continued work, combined with the unaccustomed heat of an Australian summer, has brought about the inevitable relapse of health. Rest, therefore, has become imperative. At the Alexandra Theatre Every Man for Himself continues the attraction, Miss May Holt as “Dan, the Wide-awake ” being the central figure of the piece. According to the advertisements 38,000 people have witnessed the day since its production.

The Silbons closed their short but successful season at the Opera House on March 15. We. take the following from the advertisement announcing the final nights:—Messrs Hiscocks and Macmahon regret to announce that circumstances will compel them to terminate this extraordinarily successful season in the very heyday of its popularity. Night after night the strange interest excited by these artists has, if possible, increased, until the acclamation of the public has attained a degree of intensity rarely aroused by a theatrical performance. Mr G. C. Milne, the American tragedian, whose Shaksperian performances in Sydney and Brisbane have already been noticed in these columns, opened at the Opera House on March 16 in Richard 111.

Mamma, at the Bijou, is an immense success. The piece is preceded by My Milliner’s Bill.

The three final performances of the pantomime at the Theatre Royal were devoted to benefits to tbe Borani Brothers, the employees, and Mr E. V 7. Eoyce, respectively. On March 16 a new season was inaugurated under the management of Messrs Williamson, Garner and Musgrove, when The Union Jaclc was given by Mr Bland Holt’s Company for the first time in Australia. The “Age” remarks on the piece :—" The plot consists of a confused medley of incidents, and the characters introduced are of a stereotyped penny-dreadful pattern. The dialogue is feeble and pointless, only relieved by snatches of false sentiment and coarse innuendo. Its name has no relevancy to the action except that for stage effect soldiers and sailors are mixed up with the business. Thus, perhaps, unwittingly, and by a strange perversion of the laws governing the association of ideas, the halo of the flag ‘ that braved a thousand years the battle and the breeze,’ is thrown round the vices, puerilities and social peccadilloes of the very commonplace people constituting the dramatis persona; of the play. The humour sought to bo infused into some of the scenes is of a deadly lively character, and has that dubious tendency which raises a doubt whether it is intended to make the audience laugh or wee'p. The play abounds with bold, bad men, and ladies either of easy or superabounding virtue. The hero is a middy beyond the poetic age, and the heroine a gushing but distressful creature, who recognises the lover of her infantine days, not by the orthodox strawberry mark, but by a broken sixpenny piece. The only sensation provided is a murder, of which the more genteel villain is the victim, his companion in guilt being reserved for the more prosaic process initiated in Bow street, and consummated in front of Newgate. It would bo difficult to define, except by tbe costumes, the precise period at which the action takes place, and no less a puzzle to discover the object which such a tissue of rubbish was designed to servo, except to afford Mr Gox’doa scope for tbe illusions of the scenic artist. Tbe Royal is regarded as our national theatre, and Melbourne playgoers cannot but feel disgusted at seeing it devoted to representations scarcely removed one degree, above Richardson’s show, or the outrageous balderdash of the old transpontine stage. On Saturday night, while the more popular portions of the house were filled, the dress circle presented a beggarly array of empty benches, while the occasional jeers and guffaws of the upper gallery occupants might be accepted as a tolerably correct estimate formed by the audience of the tedious and uninteresting nature of the performance. * * * Mr Wilmot Eyre, a recently imported actor, played Jack Medway smoothly, but without investing the character with a particle of interest or significance. Possibly he might have been a little nervous in making his dihut before a critical audience, and his mediocrity of talent might be more apparent than real. We have never seen Bland Holt to worse advantage than as Peter Fly. We are afraid this favourite comedian is led away by the delusion that an actor can live upon a former reputation, and that spurious wit and forced humour will be accepted by tbe public as legal tenders and the genuine coinage of the brain. His ability in a certain direction is indisputable, but the public wearies of even better things than the nauseating monotonousness of the pinchbeck attractions of melodrama, and playgoers can hardly fail to resent hia repeated engagements at the Royal in pieces of the class alluded to.” The other leading characters are filled by Mies Kate Bishop, Mrs Holt, Miss Blanche Lewis, Miss Flora Anstead, Miss Emma Chambers, Mr Charles Holloway, Mr H. Liston, and Mr Glover, and in almost every instance the " Ago ” critic is severe in his remarks. The Melbourne " Argus” contains a friendly criticism on the production.

The variety companies (Hicks’ Minstrels, at St George’s Hall, and Mi F, M. Clai’k’s “ American Novelty Entertainers,” at the Victoria), have lost none of their attrac-.

tiveriess to patrons of this class of amusement

The Vendetta is still the attraction at Her Majesty’s, though the audiences have, so far, fallen short of what was expected by the management, Betsy, at the Criterion, has been so well received by the public that Messrs Brough and Boucicault decided not to withdraw it until March 22, extending the season a week. A Sydney paper states that “ the finished manner in which Mr G. W. Anson sings ‘Home, Sweet Home,’ brings down the house nightly.” The Glass of Fashion is to be the next production.

At the Theatre Boyal, It’s Never too Late to Mend gave way on March 16 to Boucicault's sensational drama. The Streets of London, Mr Warner appearing as Badger. Mr Bignold has made arrangements with the Italian Opera Company, who have finished their season at the Opera House, to give a series of operas and highclass concerto at Her Majesty’s Theatre. The idea is to give an opera on certain afternoons of the week, and a concert on each Sunday night until the termination of the contract.

Mr Frank Smith’s variety company at the Alhambra are receiving a large amount of patronage. The partnership between Messrs George Bignold and James Alliton terminated on March 13.

In Brisbane Miss Bosa Towers has bean playing Madame Favart. The London Minstrel Tourists are at the Gaiety Theatre.

The Majeroni season has been concluded in Adelaide.—Alter a short provincial tour in Victoria, the Arnold Hans The Boatman Company have gone to Adelaide.

d :;Mr Frank Lincoln, the American humorist, informs a Melbourne paper that his real name is Gustavus Hopkins, and that he was bora at Constantine, Mich., on July 18, 1834. An Opera Company, known as "The Australians,” were to open in Bockhampton about March 20, in M'anola. The Company, consist of Misses Annette Ivanova, Aggie [Kelton, May Hill, Maggie Johnstone, Belle Stewart, .Raymond, and Messrs George P. Carey,Knight Aston, John Hood, Liasnut, Edwards, tire, Cornelius, &c. Mr W. H. Harrison accompanies the Company as conductor, and Mr W. Alden is the manager. After playing Northern Queensland, they leave for Java, thence to China.

Nina Tulloch, the respondent in the divorce suit Yates v. Yates and Friedman, recently heard in the Supreme Court, Sydney, made her first appearance (says the "Sydney Bulletin”) in Melbourne in March, 1880, at St George’s Hall, in M'Lean’s Troubadours. She was then an attractive little girl in short clothes, doing German business, d la Maggie Moore, in Struck Oil. Miss Tulloch was lost sight of toy Melbourne playgoers till early in 1886, when she re-appeared, this time at th<a Victoria Hall, where she was billed as " The Great English Artiste.” Mrs Langtry is recovering from her recent illness.

Miss Jenny Watt-Tanner, * the wellknown Australian actress, hs.s made a successful appearance at Terry’s Theatre, London.

Mr Sims Beeves has given uj> all idea of visiting Australia. He will finally bid farewell to the Provinces and s übsequently to London at the end of the pr esent year. Mr Wilson Barrett has, since the end of January, been appearing a/gain at the Princess Theatre in Hamlet,, with Miss Eastilake as Ophelia, both win ;aing tremendous applause, particularly after the latter’s mad scene.

How the New York theatres depend on the tram service may be gathered from the following figures. During the late strike among the tramway; employees the Fifth Avenue Theatre was losing 300dols a night. Palmer’s 275d015, th'.s Star GOOdols, Daly’s 225d01c, the Grand Opera 400dols, and Niblo’s SOOdols.

Mr Henry Irving reached the age of fifty-one on Feb. 6. His in< Reposition soon gave way to rest, and he returned to play Macbeth at theLyceumafiorashorbretirement. One evening he watched the play from beginning to end from a box. At rehearsals he goes into this • “ front ” of the house, when not actually wanted on the stage; but this is the firsi; time on record, we believe, that the famous Company have gone through the whole ok a play with the stern eye of their chief:", watching them from " the front.”

Baldwin and his pars .chute are already behind the times. Not long ago the papers were full of accounts of h ow an amiable ape had been trained by—w<i fancy—a French lady to imitate the aerial feats of the “ professor.” Now it is. a pony which is going to do the trick. At H'engler’s equestrian entertainment at Oovent Garden one of these little animals £ as been trained to descend by a parachute* from the roof, the ingenious performance being, it is stated, " perfectly safe to the equine performer.” They are taking a le:s.f out of the American pirates' book in Vienna. After the great success of TheMiJcado in the Austrian capital, some “ enterp rasing burglar ” of a stage manager appears to have thought that to produce Th% Yeomen of the Guard without paying for ii 5 would mean "good business.” The title ( puzzled the translator apparently, for .he renders it baldly. Captain Wilson. "'The opera,” says a Home paper, “ was produced at the Carl Theatre, under the tiitle of Captain Wilson, and had a great success, which the Viennese critics fulljyf endorse. The English composer receives not a single penny from Vienna, and hfi|s music has been rearranged—in some, parts almost beyond recognition. Yet erne critic says, ‘No Viennese musician: could compose such charming music as ithat of this English opera.' ” Mr F. Cowen, who acted as musical conductor at the Me/i bourne Exhibition, has returned to England. In the course of an interview with a n ewspaper representative ho said the Ausiaalians were naturally fond of music, but at the time of his arrival he found that their tastes had become degenerated 1 ... The Exhibition concerts had, howevei \ worked a marvellous revival in musical matters, and the result was most astounding. So rapid and so effectual had been this rev ival that, he' confidently stated, the choir li'fc the Melbourne Exhibition was nearly equal to the choirs of Leeds and B 5 rmingham. The Press criticisms had been able and impartial, and helped considerably to create the enthusiasm for high class music that now exists. Mr Cowen denied that, ho was composing an A ustralian symphony, as had been stated.

The progress; of scientific photography threatens to ad 3 a new terror to the stock of theatrical n managers. Of all inquisitive meddlers, a Paml Pry with a photographic camera in tin j place of his historical umbrella, says a: The Photographic News, 5 ' is the most ann crying. The reflection is provoked by tl; .<3 communication of a correspondent Who asserts that at least one individual <ni the first night of Macbeth at the Lyceum was busily engaged in manipulating th e< “ detective camera,,” with the intention -of securing portraits of the numerous celebrities around him. The furtive photographer, it is added, was clearly a; a old photographic hand, for it was only:to trained eyes that the significance or his artful movements was apparent, mid no notion appeared to enter the head,s of the "celebrities” that they were siticing for their portraits. There is even a isuspicion that he was bent on obtaining photographic notes of the costumes Tooth before and behind the curtain, possibly for publication in some book of fashio/osk

Mr Eichard Mansfield, the young American actor who made such a striking success in Lonidon with Dr JeJcyll and Mr Hyde , was on, the point of appearing in Bichard 111. when his health broke down. His voice, gave way and he has been obliged to go fertile South of Franco and rest fora whih*. Meanwhile, ho is studying his pai;b, and the preparations for the production /of the play are being pushed on at the Globe Theatre. These later revivals of Sbukspere are nothing if not gorgeous as re 2;ards scenery and perfection in historical civ tail. Accotdingly Mr Seymour Lucas, th e well-known A.E. A,, and assistants, are diligently preparing drawings and tracings /of! the costumes, weapons, &c., from the '-m.ost trustworthy sources, while the cos-.

turners, armourers, and property-men ate carrying out the work, and the scene* painting is rapidly advancing. Mr Walter Pollock is associated with Mr Egerton Castle in the arrangement of the battle scenes, which will depict the actual mode of fighting characteristic of the period. Altogether, the revival promises to be of considerable archeological as well as dramatic interest.