NOTES BY LORGNETTE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1290, 19 November 1896, Page 17

NOTES BY LORGNETTE.

Mr J. St. Clair writes me as follows from the Melbourne Princess : —" Dear Lorgnette, —A few lines in haste as I am very busy just now. I have just returned from a short trip round Ballarat, Bendigo and Geelong with “ A Trip to Chinatown.'' Business being enormous at Bendigo, I was summoned for overcrowding. It is now decided that “ A Trip to Chinatown " will come to New Zealand, playing Wellington and Auckland only, there being no time to play any of the other towns as the Company has to depart for America on December 24th, so there is a treat in store for you. Harry Conor is great, a comedian from top to toe both on and off the stage. Frank Lawton is a wonderfully versatile man, a beautiful whistler, an rxgile dancer and splendid comedian. Miss Bessie Clayton is a wonderful dancer ; her back kick is perfectly astounding. However you will be able to judge for yourself. Following upon “ A Trip to Chinatowu " Mrs Brown Potter and Mr Kyrle Bellew will come over commencing Auckland at Xmas. They are at present doing a splendid season at Sydney Lyceum, which they will occupy until their departure for New Zealand. I hope to see you shortly, probably next direct boat from Sydney."

My Christchurch correspondent writes : —Things have continued lively in Glou-cester-street all the week, what with circus band, —and the side shows—the latter lining up every half-hour, and making the most hideous noise. I have not patronised any of the side-shows, but if the noise made outside is any criterion of the performance given inside they must be off, but some people have an idea that anything is good enough for Carnival Week at Christchurch, and that everyone is bound to make a rise. This idea has been exploded, the Theatre Royal being tire only place that has turned them away nightly. Tom Pollard and his clever company deserve all their luck, for they have worked hard —a change of opera each night—to please the public. Theatre goers will join with us in wishing the Pollard Bros. —Tom and Bill —long life to enjoy their win on the New Zealand Cup. Of course the amount has been magnified considerably, but I have it on good authority that .£IOOO is the amount of their haul on the Melbourne-New Zealand Cup double. So sure were they after Day Star went wrong that they did not lay-off any of it except .£IOO to Mrs White’s the wife of the jockey on Lady Zetland. On Monday night when Tom, followed by Percy White, appeared before the crowded audience, they were received with a real good hearty cheer. Percy, in accepting the whip and the cheque on behalf of his wife, said —Mr Pollard, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to recite you “ How we beat the favourite" but time will not permit. This was the signal for another round amid which they managed to get off the stage. —Some of the lady members, including the Misses Maud and May Beatty, Flo Pelts, Emily Metcalfe, and Aggie Smith visited the Christchurch Hospital on Wednesday last and gave a two hours’ concert, which was much en-

joyed by the patients, some df whom no doubt bemoaned their luck at not being able to go to the Derby.—The Godfrey Company did only moderate business at the Tuam-street Hall, and Musin, assisted b} 7 local talent, as I predicted, did poor business ; even the great show night the Hall was not well filled.—Probasco’s Circus got the full benefit of the overflow at the Royal and had a packed house on Show (night.—The Cinematographe has been shown in a shop in High street, and Mr Macmahon has raked in the dollars. — Nothing is yet known about the “ Chinatown " Company's movements, but as the writs fot the elections are expected every day it may be settled before these notes are printed.

Flo. Young has been engaged to play principal boj 7 in the Princess’ Christmas pantomine.

Juliet “ Flegie " Wray plays a principal part in the revival of “ Djin Djin," now playing at Melbourne Princess.

News comes of the death in New York from heart disease of Mr James Lewis, principal comedian of Augustin Daly’s famous company. He was a humorous impersonator of those good old men who, escaping from domestic worries for a time, dearly love to pursue the stout and oyster to their lair, where the yellow-haired mermaid holds high revel. In the more serious productions of the company he played such parts as Touchstone, Sir Toby Belch, Grumio, and Launce. In these, says a London critic, his Americanisms of speech became more apparent, and his enunciation less distinct than in more modern characters. Like everybody else he had his limitations. Yet, like Yorick, “ he was a fellow of infinite jest.”

Good theatres, says Sydney Sunday Times, must be at a premium in London. When the mail left none could be found wherein to place Marie Correlli’s “The Sorrows of Satan," or Mrs Hodgson Burnett’s “ Lady of Quality," though plenty of money was available to pay treasury calls.

Misses Jennie Lee, Ada Lee and Katie Lee are playing together in “ Jo" at suburban London theatres.

“The Mighty Atom" —Jimmy McMahon. — Bulletin.

By the way, what has become of “ The Insect " (George Leitch) ?

The celebrated “Moulin Rouge" quadrille by four Parisian dancers was introduced into “The Little Genius" at the Shaftesbury Theatre, London, recently. It was pretty warm, even for a Shaftesbury audience, for we read that it was received with hootings and hisses. One London paper considers the innovation will be a great draw “ when it has been toned down."

Madame Patti is extremely fond of animals. One of her greatest favourites is a tiny Mexican dog which was presented to her by President Diaz. The famous p>rima donna is also fond of parrots, and one of her birds, a parrot known by the name of Jumbo, has a marvellous gift of imitation.

Thus the Bulletin on Alfred Dampier’s Monte Christo, in Melbourne Alexandra. —Alfred Dampier is about the most consistent feature of the struggle. Pie gets dragged away to prison in tho prologue, and is duly continued in the next act, where he mentions that he has been gnawing the stone walls of his dungeon cell for 14 years. Soon afterwards he is thrown into a seething ocean in a sack, and thenceforth his path in life is paved with gold and crossed by new editions of people who hated him when he was younger. All these have come into a terrible lot of money, the same as Dampior. If they were ordinary bloated capitalists, and if Dampier could persuade himself to retire into private life on ten millions sterling, the drama would probably end here. But the fortunate gentleman from gaol prowls around, waiting and hoping for vengeance, until his jealous rivals of long ago have mostly died of violence at his hands. An odd one, who escapes destruction, merely falls into the hands of the police. Alfred Dampier, the inflexible Edmund Iloilo way, Appleton, Lachlan M‘Gowan and George Duller are creditably concerned in this affair, but they will probably bo concerned in something different shortly.

Sarah Bernhardt scored her first success in Le Passant, a play by Francois Coppee, at the Odeon, in Paris. She had just graduated from the Imperial Conservatoire and received a medal of honour as fir3t prize in tragedy and comedy. “ I can see the little theatre," the great French actress says, “ and the people seated in the audience as I made my first appearance on the stage. My heart for the next moment seemed to stand perfectly still. The first words I uttered fell from my lips in indistinct accents. I made one grand step forward, and then all my nervousness vanished."

M. Paderewski in the course of a few years must have amassed a great fortune. His recent tour of three months in the United States resulted in net receipts of no less than two hundred thousand dollars, and at a single recital in Chicago the takings amounted to 7,382 dollars, or more than LI4OO. The great pianist is extremely liberal to all around him, but

he does Hot care for the attentions of sodiety people.

Modern criticism of Shakespere, from cheeky Saturday Review : —“ Cymbeline, for the most part is, stagey trash of the lowest melodramatic order."

The Australian dramatic run record is held by “ Struck Oil," which ran five months in the latter half of 1874 to an average of £IOOO a week.

It is rumoured in Melbourne that Miss Florence Young, of the now disbanded Royal Comic Opera Company, and well known to New Zealand playgoers, is engaged to the Hon Mr Rivington, cousin of the Earl of Clancarty, who, when Lord Dunlo, married Miss Belle Bilton.

The Brough Comedy Company have been doing fine business at Melbourne Bijou. “ A Mother of Three," which we shall see here next year, has proved a trump card. Mrs Brough is said to be immensely funny therein.

Mrs Brown Potter and Mr Kyrle Bellew, who are to visit us shortly, have been playing, “ She Stoops to Conquer," in Sydney. C. M. Berkeley, here recently with the Opera Company, was good as Tony Lumpkin, and Oily 7 Deering was excellent in another low comedy part. Our old friend, Miss Linda Raymond, created an impression as Constance Neville. A revival of “Romeo and Juliet" was to follow Goldsmith’s fine old comedy.

London criticism is nothing if not formal. The following is from the Sporting and Dramatic Ncu:s : —“ Erraratum. —In a certain portion of the present issue, by a printer’s slip in our Drury Lane notice, Mr John Coleman — whom we respect in common with all who know him—is twice referred to as ‘ old ’ John Coleman, instead of as ‘ Mr ’ John Coleman, as was written. As an author himself Mr Coleman will forgive us when he notes that ‘Mr’ and ‘old,’ dissimilar as they are in print, lend themselves in writing to this mistake by the straining of the compositor’s ingenuity."

The husband of Miss Marie Lloyd, the London music hall artist, was recently before the Blackpool, England, Court for breaking things at the hotel where he and his .wife were staging. He smashed plate-glass windows to the value of ten guineas.

The basis of the new Adelphi, London, melodrama, “ Boys Together," is a short story which Mr Chambers sent to editor Comyns, of the English Illustrated Magazine. He refused it then, but collaborated with the author in turning it into a play.

A leading London critic, discussing the question of leading actresses continuing to play juvenile parts after they are physically unsuited for them, says : —“ If Amy Roselle, with all her experience, had put on a cap and grey hair, she need not have been the heroine of a piteous tragedy."

One London critic, after seeing her in “ The Duchess of Coolgardie," thinks Miss Hilda Spong’s forte is comedy rather than melodrama. He says: —“She looked well, and secured the sympathies of the house for a rather colourless part, and was rewarded with abundant applause, proving that whatever else she does Saturday night found her a home in London playgoers’ hearts."

The first topical allusion to the crisis in Turkey which burst upon the English playgoer in all its wild, weird frenzy, was the following :

There’s a nation not so very far away, For whose defence ’gainst Russia once we fought, But a different story might be told to-day, Of crimes winked at by Sultan and his Court, Armenia cries aloud to us for pity, Great Britain will not hear her cry in vain ; We ought to send our forces to that city, Where Chrirtian blood is flowing now like rain. Chorus. When crimes like tins arc done, Wo our duty should not shun ; That Europe is inactive makes me mad to see, And to end Armenia’s woes, Wo tho Sultan should depose, And we’ve felt right from the first as ’ow it ’ad to be. “ As ’ow it ’ad to bo " is indeed calculated to rouse all the virtuous indignation that human nature is capable of.