THEATRICAL NOTES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22444, 13 June 1936, Page 17 (Supplement)

THEATRICAL NOTES

COMING PRODUCTIONS THEATRE AND CONCERT HALL -■IIS MAJESTY'S THEATRE To-niffhl. —J. C. Williamson, " Fresh Fielda." July.— Auckland Operatic Society. "New Moon." IOWN HALL September 3.—Auckland Choral Society. TOWN HALL CONCERT CHAMBER .June 27.—Little Theatre Society. " Easy Virtue." , Visit ol Richard Crooks The famous American tenor, Richard Crooks, who arrived at Auckland yesterday by the Mariposa on his way to Australia, will commence a tour of New Zealand in September, according to advice frfini the headquarters of J. C. Williamson and J. and N. Tait. The tour will folfow a season in Australia which is to bo commenced this month. Known the world over through the medium of the wireless. Richard Crooks is an unusually tall concert personality, being over six feet. He is possessor of a beautiful voice, and this, combined with an arresting personality, has made him probably America's favourite tenor. On his tour Richard Crooks will have Fred Schauweeker as pianist. Famous German Conductor Dr. Wilhclm Furtwaengler, the famous German conductor, has been released at his own request by Herr Hitler from his conducting engagements in Germany for a season. It is explained that he wishes to devote himself for a time to private work. He will conduct at the Bayreuth Festival in July, but otherwise will not be heard in Germany during tho coming season. He is expected to resume his engagements both in Germany and abroad in about a year's time. In March, 1934, Dr. Furtwaengler resigned his post as director-in-chief of the Berlin State Opera because of tho Nazi nttacks on Paul Hindemith. A year later ho was reinstated. New Mask Theatre Something new in theatres was inaugurated in .London recently at the Studio Theatre, Notting Hill Gate. Masks have been used in drama and the dance from earliest times, but the aim of the Mask Theatre is a performance created principally from the mask itself. The programme gained in consistency from the fact that all tho masks were the work of Eliso Passavant, though the subjects ranged from Grecian models to a modern sailor. The most ambitious effort was a series of Voodoo rituals, in which the realistic miming of a sacrificial ceremony was not inappropriately accompanied by Ravel's " Bolero," with the occasional beating of a tom-tom to lend additional local colour. Mary Montgomery, Victoria Kingslcy, and Alex Passavant did this particularly well. A comedy in mime, " Sailors Don't Care," provided a humorous interlude, which enabled the performers to show that movements of the body and limbs can make the set expression of the masks seem to change with the mood.