MUSICAL AND DRAMATIC.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9082, 16 June 1888, Page 5 (Supplement)

MUSICAL AND DRAMATIC.

Mr. Chaeles Arnold, who has been playing \n " Hans the Boatman" in Melbourne with great success, is, together with his company, to visit New Zealand next month. Mr. Cunard will be advance agent, and Mr. Lohr manager.

George Darrell, in the Theatre Royal, Adelaide, has brought out for the first time in Adelaide, his Irish drama of "The Soggarth." He has previously been feeling t.he play-going pulse in that city with another play of his own entitled "Hue and Mr. Goorge Leitch, who, after a successful season in Brisbane with "Hunan Nature and " The Silver King," went north, is reported to have had a rather un quo tribute paid to his talents as comedian, when his opening performance in Charters lowers had ended. The play was "Harbour Lights," in which Mr. Leitch acted Tom Dorriter. Some twenty horsemen, who had come from the country expressly to see tho piece, directly it was over went in a body to ask "'Tommy'' to have a drink. " Tommy" had gone to* his hotel. But his admirers were quickly on his track, and once they had " cornered" him they insisted on sticking to him till he hail swallowed a pretty liberal allowance of their liquor as well as their praise. The appearance of a French comedy company in St. George's Hall, Melbourne, will bo heard with interest by all Australian playgoers. It is some years since a similar experiment was tried in the Victorian capital, and with no great amount of success, but no doubt at the present day the language of Molliere is more familiar in Australia than it was then : and so a more prosperous career than that of their predecessors may be hoped for these visitors. One of the pieces in which they opened was Mdme. Gerardin'e "La Joie Fait Peur," on which Dion Boucicault has founded his little drama of "Kerry." The leading members of the company have proved them6elves very accomplished artists. The Lynch Bellringera were at latest in Albury. The Holloway Company, with Miss Essie Jenyns as the chief attraction, axe still in Launceston.

Edwin Booth is one of the most inveterate of smokers, and must spend a small fortune yearly in the indulgence of his taste for the fragrant weed. As a rule he smokes cigars, and they are a particular brand, furnished him by h manufacturer, and from which he never changes. At home in his study he burns a mixture of costly and fragrant tobacco in a great water-pipe, and there is always a little table spread with a great array of pipes of all makes from which his visitor can make a choice if lie prefers. The latest achievement in tho way of realism on the stage is tho work of the manager of the theatre at Koetten, in the Duchy of Anh.dt, who announces that in the third act of a new piece he will introduce a butcher's shop, "in which maybe admired genuine joints of all kinds of meat, arranged with art and according to nature by Mr. So-and-so, master butcher." In Paris there is a commission sitting to decide whether gas should not be abolished in theatre?, and the electric light substituted. The commission visited the electric labora

Tory in Crenelle, where a competent lecturer showed some extraordinary experiments. All sorts of inflammable materials, silk, calico, canvas, chips of wood, and edges of old scenery were brought in contact with the light, and exhibited no tendency to catch tire. LONDON" THF.A7KICAI. GOSSIP. Mr. Nesbitc is the critic of The Time? and The Umpire. He is a severe critic, and has made many authors smart, not to mention colleagues, for he has gone out of his way to criticise his fellow critics. For tome time he has been endeavouring to get a play of his own produced. At last he has t-ueceeded, and critics and authors are avenged. The piece was done at the Princess' and for the moment theatrical society lias forgotten the Metropole Ball to laugh over " Dorothy Gray,"' the very worst play that has been seen fer years. It falls to the lot of every dramatist to fail in his work, to add to the li=t of unsuccessful dramas, and as a rale artistic society is sorry for the dramatist when he has a stroke of ill-luck ; but |X)or Nesbit seems to have no friends. He has hit so many writers and actors on the head, jeered at so many plays, made himself so generally offensive, that in the hour of his humiliation, he is laughed to eeorn. It is not worth while to describe his play. It was ridiculed even by a friendly matinee audience, and when at the close they called derisively for the author, and it was announced that he was not in the house, the audience laughed, hissed, and "boohed." The play was absurdly conventional, badly written," and utterly foolish—so much so that the critics profess to regard it as an elaborate joke, which, by the way, it was not.

During the week previous to Mr. Irving's return, Miss Genevkve Ward played a brief season at the Lyceum, delighting the town once more in " Forget Me Isot," and boring it considerably with a new piece by her leading man and Mr. Pemberton, entitled "The Loadstone." The audience stood the infliction with exemplary patience for Miss Ward's sake, wondering how so wise a manageress could have accepted so poor a play. The " Loadstone"' is perhaps not quite so poor a piece as " Dorothy Gray ;" but it is misnamed, having none of the drawing qualities that characterise the loadstone.

The best burle-que which has been seen since his "Stage Dora' , is Burnand's " Airey Annie," a travestie of Mrs. Bernard D-.-ere and her unwholesome French sensation at the Opera Comique. It is preceded by a charming comedy, by Pinero, entitled " Sweet Lavender." "The Mystery of a Handsome Cab" at the Princess' has undergone considerable revision, and now goes much better than at the outset. The interest of the story is concentrated with more dramatic elYect than might have been thought, possible on the original lines. The drama is a money success, and at the same time the changes make it more or less worthy of being regarded with critical toleration. "The Pompadour," at the Haymarket, is not bad as a show piece ; but, as a drama, it will not enhance the repu:ation of its authors, Messrs. Wilis and Grundy ; neither has Mr. True nor his wite scored as artists in the leading parts. The piece is drawing crowded houses nevertheless.

Mr. Wilson Barrett is leaving the Globe. He will go on a provincial tour, and return six months hence to occupy a fine new theatre that is to be built for him in the neighbourhood of Tottenham Court Road. There is a great fuss about " Little Lord Fauntleroy." Mrs. Burnett, the author of the story, not having dramatised it, though it was published two years ago, Mr. Seebohm, took it'for granted he might. He asked permission when he hud done it; the lady refussd ; then she half consented ; then j-he or her publishers brought an action to restrain Seebohm, then the play was done and made a success, then Mr. Wilson Barrett appeared on the scene, then Mrs. Burnett turned up from America, and there we are. Mrs. Burnett says her version is nearly ready, and in the meantime Seebohra'a play goes on, he offering the lady half his profits and the right to revise his piece, she angry and discontented. The end of the quarrel seems far oil"; but Seeboh:n's play at every matinee fills the Prince of Wales' Theatre.

The Kendalls, who do not often make a failure at the St. James', have done so nevertheless in their revival of Lovell'a not very clever play of "The Wife's Secret." This was a favourite play of the Keans (Mr. and Mrs. Charles), and their finished style of acting was in sympathy with it; but Mr. Kendall is not a romantic actor, and Mrs. Kendall seemed to take no pains with her part until the end of the piece. The gallery bis3(.d the production, which was in bad taste on the part of the gallery. Mr. Kendall dresed the puritan lover in clothes as line as the cavalier, and defends the innovation by saying that when Cromwell thought he would be elected king he dressed himself in velvet and lace. Musico-Dramaticus. V , All communications intended for tnis column should be addressed "Musico-Dramatiens," Hkuai.ii Office, Auckland, and should be forwarded as early as possible.