PLAYS AND PLAYERS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1182, 26 October 1894, Page 28

PLAYS AND PLAYERS.

The theatrical, editor of the New Zealand Mail will be happy to receive and print route dates and any other information concerning the movements of companies. A post card giving “ route dates ” for the week is recommended. Address all communications for this column to “Lorgnette,” New Zealand Mail office, Lambton quay, Wellington.

“ Here come the actors, Buz, Buz.” —Hamlet

NOTES BY LORGNETTE.

The Pollard season continues to be most successful. “Olivette" was pro duced on Monday night, and was in every way the best thing the Liliputians have yet given us. Scenery and costumes were very handsome, and in the title role Marion Mitchell made a great hit. On Friday and Saturday “ The Pirates ” and “ Pinafore " respectively will be played, each; of these latter productions being followed by “ Woman’s Franchise," which is a new and improved version of “An Adamless Eden," produced by the Company at Auckland on a previous tour. The season closes on Saturday, the Company going South on Monday, returning here at Christmas, when 4ho pantomime of “ The Forty Thieves " will be the opening production.

Heller’s Bonanza Coterie, a clever combination which has been touring the colony for some months, is now in this province, and opens at the Opera House on November sth. The entertainment, which includes thought-reading and conjuring, has been very highly spoken of. The Company did remarkably well when they appeared at Dunedin some months back.

Fitzgerald’s Circus has been showing to big business in the Waikato, and now comes South, opening at New Plymouth to-day (Friday), for a two nights’ season. Then Hawer.i, Wanganui, and the Coast to Wellington.

Kennedys at Dunedin still, where Phil. Newbury and Emily Spada have “farewelled."

Madame Belle Cole a farewell concert in Melbourne on October 11th. The Australasian speaks favourably of the New Zealand tenor, Mr T. M. Jackson, who is going Home with Madame Cole.

Maggie Moore is to begin a Melbourne season this week with the builesque of “ Little Jack Shephard." The cast includes the fair Maggie herself as Jack (rather a big Jack, eh ?), Mr H. R. Roberts as Jonathan Wild, and Oily Deering as Bluoskin. New Z-aland playgoers will remember how well the burlesque was played by the Brough and Boucicault Burlesque Company some six years ago, when Fanny Robina (what “go" that girl had) was Jack, Brough was Jonathan, and Teddy Royce Blueskin. Christmas pantomimes in Melbourne are to be “ Beauty and the Beast" at the Princess, apd “ Aladdin" at the Royal. At Her Majesty’s, Sydney, “ Jack and the Beanstalk" will be the attraction. Miss Edith Courtney, one of the “Morocco Bound " crowd, will be the Jack.

In “Aladdin," at Melbourne Royal, Crawford and Mooney, of high-kicking fame, and well known here, will have parts. Those two clever children, “ Bubbles and- Lar," will also appear in the same production.

“Julius Caesar" is being played at Her Majesty’s, Sydney. George Rignold, of course, plays Mark Antony ; Oathcart, Brutuß \ Charles Hall, Caesar j and Mr

Scot Inglisi ah old acquaintance and a wonderfully versatile actor, is the Cassius. Miss Kate Bishop (Mrs Lolir) is Portia; Old Lachlan McGowan plajs Decius Brutus. - v

Williamson and Muegrove produce the latest London success, “ The New Boy," at the Sydney Lyceum on the Ist of next month.

“Too many words and too much Elton" are tile main faults in the Melbourne production of “ Morocco Bound," according to the Australasian. As to the dialogue of the piece, a very good idea may be gained by the following quotation from on 9 of the principal songs in the “ book " :

Well, it is a bit ’ot, eh, what ? what what ? It’s rather warmish, ain’t it! \ I can’t hear for certain whether “Morocco Bound" will see New Zealand or not. D.V., which, being translated, means in this case, Doubtful, Very !

The Bland Holt Company are at Brisbane, and I read that Hilda Spong has made a groat hit as Stella St. Clair in “ A Million of Money." I shouldn’t have thought the part would have suited her.

The Australasian says that Mr Frank Thornton returns to England shortly, and that Mr Brandon Thomas is authorised to engage a substitute in London. “Charley’s Aunt" goes to India when the said substitute arrives.

Miss Myra Kemble is still in London, and is reported to be on the look out for novelties. She wants them badly, and when she gets them she wants to know how to produce them. New Zea'anders will not forget her last tour round this part of tho--globe._ Ask Joe St. Clair for particulars.

The Brough and Boucicault Company were to commence a short season at Adelaide on the Bth of this month. Qne of the productions is to be “She Stoops to Conquer.", Brough ought to be a capital Tony Lumpkin.

Poor Fillis has left for South Africa. Ho says that he has lost over .£BOOO in Australia. I’m afraid he will find the gloss taken cff the circus business in South Africa by the Wirths.

The Wirths have, I hear, made a perfect pot of money since they went to South Africa. At Johannesburg last Christmas they opened to a £7OO house. Something like an audience that.

Maggie Moore is a good-natured soul. A few week ago she gaVe an invitation matinee to over. 1500 school "children in Melbourne. . N :

The Thornton Arnold Company are playing overland to Melbourne from Sydney. •* V;

The following are the members of the English Company who are to produce “The New Boy" under W. and M.’s management at Sydney Lyceum :--Mr Clifton-Alderson, Messrs Ralph Roberts, Eugene Mayeur, Ernest Coaham, and George Bernage ; Miss May Thorne, and Miss Edith Housley. Mr Clifton Aiderson, according to the Stage , is engaged for stage and general management as well as lead, and he brings out several pieces by Arthur Shirley and Ben Landeck, with a view to their production in the colonies.

Walter Howe, well-known-here in connection with the Bland Holt and HoweSpong tours, is now in America. The New York Dramatic Mirror says he has been engaged to play Sir Charles Harding in “The Idler.” I should have thought Howe’s style was too heavy for a comedy like “ The Idler," which, as my readers will remember, Was played here by the Brough and Boucicault Company.

The marriage of Miss Cissy Loftus, the clever girl, only 16, who has been the great music hall star of late in London, to Mr J. Huntley M‘Ca?rthy, M.P., is alluded to at length in another column under the headißg of The London correspondent ' bf the Australasian has the following riientioned a few months ago : that Jtylr Justin M‘Carthy, junior, was engaged to Miss Aida Jenoure, also a Roman Catholic and actress, who has appeared in - some of Gilbert and Sullivan’s operas, and I also averred that the marriage could never take place. Miss Jenoure must have broken off the engagement sometime ago. She has not been on the stage lately. This is Mr Huntley M‘Carthy’s fourth or fifth attachment to an actress. Ho was at one time engaged to Mr J. L Toole’s daughter, who died three or four yearß ago. A series of -gushing articles by Mr M'Carthy appeared awhile back in various papers about Letty Lind, whom he saluted as the 1 incarnation of the ‘ Dancing Girl Spirit,’ adding much maudlin rhapsody of'the same kind. Huntley M’Carthy’s ‘ best friends ’ say of him that ho is ignorant in more languages than any man in Europe. He has the literature of all countries at his fingers’ ends, but they say he has no ‘ grip ’ as a dramatist, whatever that my mean. At all events he has never been able to repeat ‘ The Candidate’s ’ success] That was very much of a fluke, ‘a success of circumstances.’ Ten years ago London rushed to see a play written by an ‘ Irish

M.P.’ just as one would nowadays feel it one’s duty to go to hear an oratorio composed by a genuine cannibal. • Cissy Loftus had long been on intimate terms with the M‘Carthy family—the daughter, Charlotte M‘Carthy, was her dearest friend. Poor old Justin himself, although nearly 90 years of age, is the mainstay of the household."

The Province, B C., says :—“Portland rejoices in an enterprising preacher, the Rev. G. R. Wallace, pastor of the First Congregational Church. He doesn’t approve of Mr Kyile Bellew and Mrs Brown Potter and their French play?, to he openly announced that he had loaded his scriptural gun and was going to take a few shots at them on Sunday from the pulpit. To the astonishment of the rev. gentleman, just before the service commenced the objects -of his wrath walked up the isle and took seats near the pulpit. The church became crowded, and seats were placed in the aisles. According to the preacher’s own acc-unt of the proceedings, they sat out the prelude to the sermon and then Mr Bellew pulled out his watch, snapped it shut, beckoned to Mrs Potter, and the two with difficulty i ieked their., way out if the crowded edifice. Mr Wallace, in order, as he says, to let them know he knew them, stopped in his discourse and pointing them out, said, ‘ These are the people I have been talking about.’ The result of this little announcement may be imagined. The preacher says he accounts for their presence ‘as a studied attempt to secure free advertising by their sensational exit.’ Now, it appears td us that the actors were too bright for tho preacher. He endeavoured to get an ‘ ad.’ out of them by a sensational sermon, but they got one out of him by a. dramatic departure." :