Amusements.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 994, 20 March 1891, Page 15

Amusements.

Tlie Theatre'. THE PHONOGRAPH. The world has always been incredulous, and long long centuries ago when a famous artist told the story that he had completed a statue so life like that it could speak, the people stoned him as a man having supernatural powers. -* Mechanics can produce motion so life-like as to be startling, and have made many attempts to produce a human-like voice, but without avail. When the world learned that Edison, the wonder worker of the present century, had invented and perfected a talking machine, people were still incredulous, and until the phonograph, as the machine is termed, was actually exhibited at the Opera House there were still unbelievers even in this city. The phonograph is certainly the most marvellous pieee of mechanism ever produced. Tho telephone! whioh enables us to convey our voices over longdistances of wire, may be considered or at least the first step towards the phonograph, and only one conversant with the working of the telephone can understand the mystery of the phonograph.

The phonograph now being exhibited ia about the size of a baud sewing machine. Tts construction is simple. The human voice when spoken into the machine through a tube faib on a sma : l glass diaphragm, at the back of which ia a needle with a line point like a scoop. This needle impinge upon a cylinder of specially prepared wax. As all sound is a series of vibrating waves, so each sound occurring in front of this machine causes the diaphragm to vibrate in accordance therewith, aud these vibrations cause tho needle to make minnte indeota. tious on the wax cylinder. These indentstions—*a series of tiny waves iu wax—ate the “ record” or condensed and confined facsitnilies of wave sounds.

The mo3t wonderful work of the machine ii its reverse action. As the sound is stored up ia the shape of wave vibrations indenting the wax cylinder, so, that cylinder oa becoming reversed in its revolutions enables another needle attached to another diaphragm to rise and fall over the indentations on the wax. This movement canses the diaphragm to vibrate in a eiaai’ar manner to the ear piece of the ordinary telephone producing the exact sounds which wera first spoken into or produced before the mouth of the machine. So delicate are the receiving and distributing diapkgrams that even the most minute sound is caught, recorded, and reproduced at will. The Phonograph, as now exhibited, has for itß motive power to turn the cylinder a small dynamo controlled by a battery. Phonograph produces the exact sound and in the earns key as it receives. To enable these sounds to be heard in a large building a metal funnel, or bell-shaped trumpet, is attached to the machine, and this funnel distributes the sound to every part of the Opera House, It may be mea« tioned that the wax cylinders are almost im. perishable. They may be stored, with care, for any length of time, and inserted into the machine will reproduce the sounds indented on their surface many thousands of times.

The Opera House was crowded in every part on Friday night, when the Phonograph was first introduced to a Wellington audience under the direction of tha Messrs MacMahon, and managed by the courteous and energetic Mr W. A. Jinkins. Professor Douglas Archibald opened the entertainment by a most interesting and humourous lecture illustrated with limelight photographs thrown on to a large screen, showing the construction of the phonograph, its gradual growth, its inventor and the many uses to which it can be put. This pithy discourse gave the audience a good insight as to what the phonograph really is and what it is capable of doing. Then the machine was put in motion, and the first sounds—a cornet solo, by Mr Arthur Smith, first cornet of Covent Garden Opera Company—roused the enthusiasm of the audience. Another cornet solo by the champion lady player of the World was in itself a splendid effort, rendered with startling fidelity. A most difficult feat was the banjo solos, every note of which sounded clear and distinct through every part of the house. Solos on a coach horn, a tin whistle with strange difficulties on the upper notes, a clarionette and piano duet played in Edison’s laboratory, with the applause of the bystanders at the conclusion, come out bright and clear. Very carious and most laughable was the reproduction of a performance by the Salvation Army at Christchurch. First the voice of the “Captain” is heard exhorting hia comrades to sing “Ye must be a lover of the Lord.” The tune was taken np by tha band, the thrumming of the tambourina being plainly recognised. Then as the whole strength of the local army took np the Btrains of the hymn very ludicrously an enthusiastic admirer chimes in “ Praise the Lord,” “Glory,” “Hallelujah.” This was bo relished by the audience that in answer to loud applause it was repeated. To show tho effect of the human voice, Professor Archibald inserted a song “ Tha Warrior Bold,” sung by Mr Biogley Shaw, In Nottingham, in October, 1889. Tha song was a surprise, note after note rang out with wonderful olearness and power, filling the whole of the Opera House with its ringing tones, so much to the satisfaction of the audience that it was instantly redemanded. A comic song by Mr J. L. Toole, and “Killaloe,” by a Nottingham gentleman, followed by a laughing song by Wallett, the well-known jester, demonstrated with what exactness the machine records the many variations of the human voice. Towards the conclusion Professor Archibald, amidst great applause, announced that tha next oylinder contained a letter from Mr Gladstone to Lord Carrington, A trifle husky came tho voice of the veteran statesman, but his tones were fully recognisable. After the programme had been gone through about 100 went upon the stage, and by means of tubes held to the ears the ordinary tones of the voice were heard as distinctly and as clearly as if the speaker stood within a few feet of the listeners,

The maßy sounds issuing from the phono* graph were heard in every part_ of the house, and from the enthusiasm displayed it was evident that the audience were at first surprised and afterwards highly E leased at the novel entertainment. From eginning to end .the leoture and the phono* graph is one of the 1 most fascinating, instructive and amusing performances ever seen in this city, and will no doubt draw crowded audiences night after night. To illustrate still farther the machine Mr Robinson, the R.M., spoke a few words into it, which were reproduced In an exact facsimile of'the voice of the speaker. The phonograph will be exhibited at Palmerston North on Monday and Tuesday next, at Feilding on Wednesday and Marton on Thursday. Our country readers have a store in treat for them. The wondrous' machine has created ah immense sensation In Wellington, and the Opera house has been erowded night after night. As a matter of fact the receipts at the doors have been larger here than they were at any single exhibition in any other town in this Colony or Australia. This is a proof that Wellington people freely patronise any really good entertainment, and from the fact that the interest in the machine was as keen on the last nights of the season as it was on the first, shows the faoination of the phonograph. J THEATRICAL NOTES. The phonograph is delighting Wellington audiences. Never, I believe have people listened with such rapt attention as they have done night after night this week in the Opera House since it has been built. There is a strange fascination about the uncanny sound issuing from a machine, the working part of which can ho covered with one’s hand. It is more weird when you apply the tubes to your ears and listen to the voice of a man who has spoken fifteen thousand miles away. It is like calling up spirits from the vasty deep. The voice comes clear and distinct, yet with a subdued tone as though the speaker was conscious of the great wide ocean rolling between he and you. The voice has a far off sound to remind you of the immensity of distance. Yet these sounds are fascinating, and wonderfully interesting. I saw an old identity mount the stage the other evening. He is an old man whose allotted space is drawing to a close. * I want to hear the voice of Gladstone before I die. I shall never go home to hear him; but, thank God, I can hear him through the phonograph.* He put the tubes to his ears, the obliging Professor Archibald inserted the cylinder containing Gladstone’s message to Lord Carrington, and as the machine rolled out the sonorous words of the veteran statesman the old identity’s eyes sparkled, his cheeks flushed, his hand trembled, and the great ambition of his life was satisfied. He had heard Gladstone. Personally my ambition was to hear the voice of Edison, and I was satisfied. High-pitched, with the typical Yankee twang intensified by his deafness, Edison’s voice could not be mistaken. The phonograph ha 9 brought new pleasures and new delights to thinking minds. It has brought the exact tones and the actual words of men of mark. When Gladstone and Edison are brought to our very doors we may well exclaim, 4 What follows this ?’ For the past three years, Harry L. Hall, son' of the late J. L. Hall, has been engaged, on the Wellington tramways as one of the most obliging and popular conductors who ever punched a ticket or ejaculated 4 Fares, please.’ From time to time he has faced the footlights, now for sweet charity’s assistance, then for the fun and amusement of holiday-makers. The amateurs of Wellington and Napier have been glad of his assistance, notably in their production of 4 Rip Yan Winkle.’ Travelling companies, short of acharacter actor, have made a call upon his talents, so that, with one thing or another young Hall has ‘ kept his hand in ’ during his tramway experience. At length the time came when he felt that the stage was his proper sphere. An offer from a leading actor in Melbourne decided his fortunes so far. His many friends In Wellington gave him a good send off the other evening in the Princess Theatre, Tory-street. The theatre was crowded, and many well-known amateurs produced a good variety programme. After the performance Harry Hall was publicly presented by Messrs W. G. Brett and J. Phillips, on behalf of the Star Gymnastic Club, with a diamond breastpin, gold pencil case, and a handsomely framed illuminated address. Later on a gold Maltese cross was given him by the members of the Carlton Football Club, of which he was the founder. Harry takes with him the good wishes of hundreds of Wellingtonians, and as I hare before given my opinion, based upon an intimate knowledge of of him for the past six years, I still repeat that I firmly believe he is destined to make a great name for himself on the colonial stage. The Dobson-Kennedy company, after re markahly good business in Wanganui, opened on St. Patrick’s night in Greymoutb, with an Irish drama, with as usual a packed house. The phonograph leaves early next week for Palmerston North, Feilding, and Marton. Thence to the Grey and Hokitika district. The Sydney Bulletin is considered a smart paper, but its theatrical staff is decidedly weak in their knowledge of geography. Graduated probably in the wilds of Woollahra, and finishing up with la grand tour as far as Rookwood, they cannot be expected to distinguish the North Island of New Zealand from the South. Lately, when speaking of a dramatic company now in this Colony, they put Hokitika and Masterton as adjacent towns. The company were to finish in the former town one night and appear in the latter on the next evening. The Bulletin gives ub credit for smart travelling, but how to get over 500 miles of space in, say, 16 hours, is probably only known to the Bulletin staff. They might kindly mail us the modus operandi. The Widow O’Brien has cruelly deceived Wellington theatre-goers. It was firmly imagined that the fascinating widow would return to the Opera House, and delight ns with the spectacle of Dora married, and Dora’s home enlivened with a couple of live mothers-in-law, both bent upon vengeance. But it is otherwise. The widow and her merry company has departed for Sydney. Jtfiss Jennie Lee opened with * Jq ’ at the

Princess Theatre, Dunedin, on St. Patrick’s night for a few nights only. She plays ‘Jack in the Box,’ which had a seven weeks’ run at the Princess, Melbourne, and * Run Wild,’ a successful London comedy of a recent date, and * The Grasshopper,’ a Scotch comedy drama which drew well on her last visit to this part of the world. Bosco Wilson is her advance agent. The MacMahon Brothers have introduced in Melbourne an automatic phonograph worked on the slot principle. They have one placed in the vestibule of the Opera House, Melbourne. A sixpence is dropped in the slot, a couple of tubes are held to your ears, and you listen to a pretty ballad or a charming piece of music. The cylinders holding the songs or music are changed several times a day, and the novelty is simply coining money. It is the intention of the MacMahon Bros, to introduce these slot, phonographs into Wellington at an early date. The Faust Family have been very success-; ful on the West Coast and should make their appearance in Wellington before long. A cablegram in the Argus states that Sir Charles and Lady Halle will revisit Australia this year, opening in Melbourne in June next. There is a chance of their coming to New Zealand. If so it is welcome news to all music lovers.

W. H. Manning, the popular theatrical manager, on his last trip through this colony 4 booked dates ’ for a tour in April, but somehow that tour is knocked on the head. A report comes that Manning has been ill. Janet Achurch has been playing 4 Devil Caresfoot ’ in Melbourne with only fair success. Mr Herbert Flemming, who was with her here, will accompany her shortly to London.

Several well known names on the stage on the * other side ’ have been unfortunate lately. Mr Charlie MacMahon and Miss Elsie Cameron have had Bevere sprains in Melbourne, while in Sydney, Miss Nellie Lyons, a charming young actress, and Miss Olga Nethersole have been too ill to fulfil their engagements. To those who know David Christie Murray it was not a matter of surprise that he and St. Maur came to loggerheads over money matters. Murray, like many literary men, is a thorough Bohemian. In his sallet days, when he held a fair position on the staff of the Morning News, the Rev. George Dawson’s paper in Birmingham, somehow or the other his money always melted before the week was well through. He did not spend much on himself. He was not a ‘ gay dog,’ and twopenny beers in Birmingham go a long way, and you can get a lot of satisfaction out of a shilling’s worth, especially if it comes from the Ashted Brewery, or the Crystal Spring at Smethwick. But his money went. He was, perhaps, half careless, half generous, and generally a wretched bad hand at figures. Statistics and finance were his bugbears. On the other hand, St. Maur has the Israelitish faculty for finesse in financing. According to my latest files by tbe San Francisco mail I learn that the lectures in America by H. M. Stanley have been anything but a success. In not a few cases the audiences have been slim, the receipts light, and the enthusiasm tame. His lectures have lacked'those features of novelty and surprise that had been looked for, and he has told many things that had previously been printed in his books. His manager, who contracted for his lectures, Btands to lose a lot of money by him. A manager who is taking a big London success on tour in the country next spring has had some immense rockets constructed. These he means to let off outside the theatre on the Saturday preceding the visit of his -company. They ascend to some unheard-of height, and there throw out, in enormous letters of fire, the title of the play. Grace Hopkins, the charming exponent of the part of Little Lord Fauntleroy, gives the Kansas City Journal an account of her visit to Australia and New Zealand, in the course of which she remarks :— 4 The rugged health of the New Zealanders is something marvellous. They hare nearly universally the brightest complexions and reddest cheeks, the very blood seems to burst through their skin. It is the healthiest country in the world. People only die from drink and old age, so they say.’ Mr Miner, the manager of the Fifth Avenue Theatre, New York, has been trying to secure the services of Mr Irving and Miss Ellen Terry for 200 nights. They are asked to bring a company, and to appear in Mr Irving’s repertory and two new plays. The offer made by Mr Miner was §200,000 and a guarantee against all expenses. Mr Irving cabled impossible. Mr Miner has since made another offer.

An Australian lady resident in Paris writes the following vivacious little critique concerning tbe divine Sarah : 4 We have been to see Sarah Bernhardt in “ Cleopatra,” and we are quite disappointed both with her and the play. She is very tiring to listen to, having got into a monotonous way of speaking, and is so thoroughly affected and nonchalant that she is positively unbearable. The general opinion of competent critics here is that she is 4 played out ’ and ought to retire. The truth is that if it were not that she has such a name nobody would go to hoar her. She dresses beautifully—moat artistically ; but though she has still her jollie voix, when she raises it in the slightest it'is harsh and broken—quite worn out. The play, which is by Sardou, is very inferior —in fact, there is really nothing in it. But still the theatre is crowded every night, and all the best seats in the house are let for ■weeks to come. I am very fond of the theatre, but I like to see something good when I do go, and I shall never trouble going to see Sarah Bernhardt again.’ An interesting telephonio experiment was recently tried at a meeting of the Midland Institute at Birmingham. According to a London paper, the special feature was the hearing of opera and pantomimes by telephone, the National Telephone Company having for the occasion fitted up four rooms in the institute building, connected with London (125 miles), Liverpool (140 miles), Manchester (95 miles), and Bradford (125 miles). The rooms are each fitted to accommodate 32 listeners, so that 128 people at one time could enjoy musical performances going on in four distant towns, Qj9j: sl9 j&Vgflw

wire came first, between 7 o’clock and halfpast eight,, the strains of a concert. Then the wire was turned on to the Savoy Theatre to hear the ' Gondoliers ’ with such success that everyone was very loth to withdraw from the telephone until the curtain fell in London. In an adjoining room could bo heard from Manchester, now 4 Aladdin ’ from the Theatre Royal, now 4 80-Peep ’ from the Prince’s. From Bradford came the sound of a concert, while in the next room the telephones record what is 4 on ’ at the Court Theatre, Liverpool (where the Carl Rosa Opera Company are performing an opera) ; or those who want something lighter can hear the funniest parts in the pantomime 4 Robinson Crusoe,’ being performed at the Prince of Wales Theatre. There is quite a fund of enjoyment to be got by the observant onlooker in studying the faces of the listening groups, many of which sit down with faces grave and and sceptical, to break forth in less than a minute in merriment. It. is no uncommon thing to see heads wagging and hands beating time as the listeners become transported by tbe rhythm of the telephoned music. Imbef.