THEATRICAL NOTES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19328, 15 May 1926, Page 8 (Supplement)

THEATRICAL NOTES.

The Best Play of 1925. j Sean O'C/asey, a young Irish playwright, is hailed in London as the greatest find of the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, since Synge. O'Casey, is the author of "Juno and the Paycock." He was born in a big tenement house in Dublin, and at the ago of three months was given over by the doctor to tho clergy for them to make the most of. At the age of twelve he could road) words of ono or two syllables with difficulty. lie got a boy's job in an ironmongery shop, then worked for a news-agent and ultimately became a bricklayer's labourer. But ho always loved / the theatre, and aftei submitting several plays, " got in" at tho Abbey Theatre. An earlier play by this author was V The Plough and the Stars." Now he has been awarded tho Hawthornden Literary Prize of £IJO, for the best work of imaginative literature, prose or verse, published during the year. This ward was instituted in 1919 by Miss Alice Warrander. Lord Oxford and Asquil.h, in presenting Mr. O'Casey with the prize in the Aeolian Hall, London, paid a high tribute to the genius of the one-time dock labourer and tho beauty of " Juno and the Paycock." •" During the last' 12 months," he said, ' " we have had a revelation in the discovery of a still young man, who has produced" on the stage here in London a, work which I do not myself, so far as my own judgment is of any value, hesitate to describe the most moving and impressive drama that we have seen for 10, it may be 15 of even 20, years. I " We who have seen tho play will agree that in the delineation of character, in the rich variety and appropriateness of the dialogue, in the invention of situations, in pathos and in humour, it is in the truest and most adequate sense of the word a great work of art. The author on his title page describes it as a tragedy, and a tragedy in a very real and very true sense it is. But the tragic atmosphere which from first to last hovers / around it and sometimes envelops it—that tragic atmosphere is shot through now and again by the intervention of what George Meredith used to call the comic spirit. " I think all who have seen the play, and probably all who have read i'i, will agree with me that in the characters of Captain Jack Boyle and his satellite Joxer, we have a pair who are entitled to take their- pari/ in the long procession of inseparable pairs which the great geniuses of comedy,from Shakespeare to Cervantes downward have used to provoke, and i provoke unce«#ingly and with ever-grow-ing appreciation, the intelligent laughter of mankind." " Juno and the Paycock" is still playing in London after more than 100 performances and opened in New York in March. I Notes ami Comments. Dorothy Brunton has cancelled her trip to London in order to appear in a special production with Guy Bates Post in Sydney on the conclusion of the current Melbourne season of "Ihe Bad Man."

Current, J. C. Williamson attractions in Sydney comprise Leon Gordon in "White Cargo," which is having a phenomenal run; "Lilac Time," with Harriet Bennet; Pavlova, whose success has equalled that of her Melbourne reason; Lee White and Clay Smith in "Keep Smiling," and Reneo Kelly in "Polly With a Past."

"Give and Take," the comedy to be presented for the first time at His Majesty's/ Theatre this evening, is the •work of the late Aaron Hoffman, author of "Welcome Stranger," seen in Auckland a few years ago. It is interesting to note that the leading player, Harry Green, was a companion of Hoffman arid actually staged "Welcome Stranger in London for 361 nights.

When Miss Sybil Thorndike's forthcoming season of " Henry VIII." has run its course at the Empire. Theatre, London, it is intended to reconstruct this house and make it into the finest theatre in 3500-4000 people, and it is not improbable that the experiment of trying a programme made up of a film and a very highly-paid, variety turn will bo made there. This kind of " mixed bill " is popular in the United States, but, only in its infancy in England.

Noel Coward's play, " Easy Virtue," has not won complete praise from American critics. One critic writes: " Deducting 60 per cent, for the fact that it is English, adding 75 per cent, for the presence.of Jane Cowl in the cast, subtracting 55 per cent, for the great preponderance of talk over action, returning 15 per cent, for merely having the butler announce, ' Lunch is served,' the performance comes out at only 40 percent. entertaining. Perhaps something should be/knocked off even this figure as a penalty for the frequent repetition of the word ' frightfully.' Nearly everything is ' frightfully ' this or ' fright- ' fully' that."

The sensation of Sydney is the J. C. Williamson ' production of Leon Gordon's play, "White Cargo," with the author prominent in the cast. Since the opening night it has been played to capacity audiences, and a strong discussion has been raging in the newspapers regarding certain phases of the play. It is described as "a play of white men in the dripping heat of a West African settlement —victims to the miasma haunting the day, the poison infecting the night." The play has been running in London for many months and it is being produced throughout the United States by no fewer than ten companies. In the London production, Brian Ahernc, who is appearing with the. Boucicault company at the King's Theatre, Melbourne, filled the role of Langford.