PLAYS, PICTURES AND PEOPLE

Northern Advocate, 20 June 1925, Page 10 (Supplement)

PLAYS, PICTURES AND PEOPLE

(By "Alphonsc.")

The New South Wales Conservatorium has become famous for the many successful artists who have received their training there. There seems to be something about Australian "air" that builds up the vocal chords and produces a fine lyrical quality, for no other countiy in tlie world has turned out a singer with the lasting quality of the famous Melba's voice. However, Rosina Buckmann is a New Zealander, and we are destined to hear more of another New Zealand soprano, Miss Phyllis Masscy, who has just completed several years' training at the Sydney Conservatorium. She has been hailed by Southern critics as one of our coming artists, and her voice is described as of a pure and beautiful lyric quality. It is to be hoped that this youthful singer will receive many engagements from New Zealand entrepreneurs, because without studi linancial encouragement the way of an artist is very hard and hopeless. Miss Masscy contemplates a comprehensive tour of New Zealand.

Picture fans are really not very loyal, for the stars of a year ago are not box office attractions today. An instance of a meteoric rise to fame ;s that of Fred Thomson, the latest and greatest "Western stunt king." Thomson is really a champion athlete who holds many championships for running, jumping, vaulting and walking, all these records being made in single afternoon, with only five . minute intervals between each two of the ten events. He and his famous hoise "Silver King" found little difficulty in capturing the public imagination, and Fred Thomson is now acclaim-; ed as the "greatest of them all." During the filming of "Galloping Gallagher" "Silver King" was trained to cover himself with a blanket, this be- | ing repeated many times during the : training and the filming. "Silver King" now demands a blanket every time he lies down. Fred Thomson is not only a "stunt king" and athlete, but he is also one of the handsomest men on the screen, with a personality that induces the warm glow of good fellowship only felt for real friends. Let Mix and Fairbanks look to their [ laurels! | It is an interesting vet curious fact j tliat whilst a certain class of person or 1 people will rail at a merchant and the j retailer for the profits he makes, on a I never hears of objection being taken !to the'enormous sums that are made Iby the world's celebrities on the stage or concert platform. It is conceded that the possessor of transcendant gifts of brain or voice, or both, is entitled to the world's homage, and incidentally to a portion of its gold or other cur reiicy. For example, Madame Amelila Galli-Curci cnu demand a trifle, like £10,000 for singing one song for a gramophone company, but that company would not dream of paying her such a sum for a three minutes warble were tliey not well aware of the enormous demand the world over for their production. Similarly Madame is receiving something like £25,000 for hsr three months tour of Australia, a sum which figures out in the vicinity of *i £1000 a night, and yet no one denies her the harvest her beautiful voice , produces. Speaking of herself on her jan ival in Australia Madame Galli- | Curci said: —"I am of the world. Mv j mother was Spanish, father Italian, j husband a Yankee, and I was brought up in a German school."

David Belasco, the American producer, in a great stickler for historical accur.H-y in his plays, and in The V/arrens of Virginia'' he had to recreate the period of tho American Civil War. The home of the famous general Robert E. Lee was visited for historical records, also the San -Jose Mission near San Antonio, which is the oldest in existence in the United States. In this story a soldier of the North loves a daughter of tire South and the Civil War makes the way of the lovers bitter indeed. Even today in America there are to be found traces of that ancient bitterness oetween North and South, for the feud was very real sixty years ago. When Cecil B. de Mille decided to film this production he naturally took the Belasco play as his starting- point, but he has incorporated all the original scenes ir. his picture, and he gathered together a huge "wardrobe" of actual uniforms and other accessories used in the period.

The Veterans of Variety who have just commenced n tour of Fuller's Theatres, fie mostly between 50 and 60 years of age. They have all been stars ntid tlr>ir return to the theatre tas been on" of the greatest evnts of the West End in recent years. They have been pnH-laimed and feted everywhere and when such names as Txively Liiy Burnand, Arthur Slater, Florence Hinton and .Take Friedman are mentioned, at least tlm.;e who remember the tli eat re of -0 years ago will be thrilled. Those veterans bring a page of yesterday with them, but they still retain the art with which to present that page as something vividly alive and real. Their art was formed in the days when stars were few and stardom hard to ach'eve. But, having won their laurels, they retain tlieni. The Veterans r.f Variety have all been emperors and pninres:-'! in their own sphere of the vaudeville world, and they still retain

personality, art and charm, of which stuff greatness is made.

Edna Thomas, who is to sing j in the Whangarei Town Hall on Monday and Tuesday, lias made the music of the American negroes peculiarly i her own. She knows all about the , , negroes and their songs, and she tells j the audience what she knows; thus adding mush to the charm of her work. The negroes must dance in church, she says. They don't call it dancing, hut it is so, nevertheless — jubilee shout, or whatever be its name. Feet and voice keep time to the re- i ligious music of the darkies, and they . sing with, every muscle of their bodies. It is the native African rhythm finding forcible expression in lilting measures, ;'iing with gusto. The negro's

faith was sturdy enough, but it &lso», f was childlike. He swallowed religion? A whole, and he poured out his feelings in songs as simple as one would expect from ;jueh an unaffected people. Misa Thomas has collected these songs; has collected too the evidences of tlLe negro touched by the wand of civilisation, gibing at the upstart fellow, lecturing the coloured girl who aspires tot rise out of her class, dilating on. a lover who is described in "Cliere moj lernrne toi," who loves as a little pig loves mud. The negro faiiy stories to* the children of all the story book animals are not forgotten, and, rich, in), I the Franco-Spanish patois of the' Creole negroes, acquire an additional, j atmosphere and charm.