Irene Vanbrugh's Jubilee Planned

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22985, 12 March 1938, Page 16 (Supplement)

Irene Vanbrugh's Jubilee Planned

FIFTY YEARS ON STAGE One of the most admired and beloved of our actresses. Miss Irene Vanbrugh, celebrates the jubilee of her first stage appearance during the present year, writes a dramatic critic in the London Observer. There will bo a series of celebrations, dinners of theatrical clubs, at which Miss Vanbrugh will be the guest of honour. The main event, however, will bo a gala matinee at a large central London theatre, at which Miss Vanbrugh will appear in some of her bestknown parts, and in which the younger stage generation will collaborate to do her homage. The planning and direction of this matinee have put been into the hands of the dramatist, Mr. Edward Knoblock, learned in the matters of the

stage, and who could say of all major theatrical events of the last 50 years (like Mr. Jowett of Balliol College) "What I don't know is'nt knowledge." Mr. Knobloek is an Irene Vanbrugh enthusiast, and his memory can carry him back to days when he was not yet a successful dramatist, but used to wait and stand in the three-hour queue for the pit for a Yanbrugh-Pinero first night. Miss Vanbrugh, who has toured New Zealand with Dion Boucicault, has played a long list of the most celebrated Pinero heroines, and has also played heroines for Mr. Somerset Maugham and Sir James Barrie. It is intended that scenes from Maugham and Barrie plays shall be included in the matinee. Her sister, Violet Vanbrugh, among many other artists, will act in the performance.