THEATRICAL GOSSIP.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4425, 3 August 1901, Page 1 (Supplement)

THEATRICAL GOSSIP.

(BY "LORGNETTE.") Miss Marie Terry, another newcomer at the Royal, created a favourable impression on Monday evening—an impression she has since confirmed. Her appearance is prepossessing, while she sings and dances prettily. •** * * . “The Monkeys and the Farmer,” a sketch in which Johnson, Riano. and Bentley are at present appearing at the Theatre Jloyal. serves to show the extraordinary nature of the agility attained by this team of American athletes. The act is conceived in a vein or extravagant humour, but contains that grain of truth to nature which cannot fail to excite th e imagination. Some of the by-play of the monkeys is wonderfully true to nature. The human-like tricks of the monkey tribe have a fascination for men, which is shared by all races in common. Our snftirfc cousins hav e turned this truth to singular advantage, an dnightlv reap a harvest of wonder, delight and applause by their antics.

Mr Wallace King is a tenor vocalist of whom the public never grows weary, and the songs he sings—grand old ballads, which . appeal to English hearts wherever they are sung—gems of which Mr Dix’s patrons also apparently never grow weary. How true in sentiment and melody are such ballads as “She wore a Wreath of Roses” and “Sally Horner, and wfll the day ever oomo when we no longer care to listen to them when sung by suoh natural, unaffected, vocalists as Wallace King?

The Oh oral Hall has changed hands. I To say that the announcement created surprise is a mild way of putting it. It came like a bolt from the blue. The Fullers have been so successful during their nineteen months’ management or the Choral Hall and the audiences so con- | sistently good that I am at a loss to un- j derstancl why th©v should have so suddenly determined to cut the last painter i binding them to New Zealand, where the ; family certainly laid the foundation of their present fortunes. The members; of the family more closely identified with i the management in Wellington have i made many friends here, and are personally popular among wide circles of professional and private acquaintanceship. It may he that the success achieved by Mr John Fuller, senr., and his sons at the Empire, Sydney, has had the effect j of turning attention to the wider field j offered on the other side. It is under- : stood the Fullers will also open in-Mel- | bourne shortly. Readers will wish this j worthy family every success in their new sphere of management. • * , * « • Miss Myra Thompson, who is the possessor of a soprano .voice of considerable range and culture, is at present, appearing at the Choral Hall with success. Her ballad singing is decidedly attractive. » • * * ♦ The Jubilee Sincere, who are making a farewell tour, will open a season at the Opera House to-night, when all the old favourites will appear, including the , comedian Gauze. »,**** The Royal Tour Bioscope Company successfully concluded an engagement at the Opera House this week. The Rotorua pictures taken for the Government were good on the whole, and the review at Hagley Park was decidedly interesting. • * • • * Musgrove’s Grand Opera Company has been doing phenomenal business during the past week in Auckland. The company will open at the Wellington Opera House on the 10th proximo. "Tannhauser” is one of the best, if not the best, production of th e Musgrove season. Mr E. Nable has*left the Pollards to manage the Juvenile Pollard Company, which is to make a two years’ tour of the States under Charles Frohman. _ * * * * • Miss Carrie Moore, now appearing in “The Casino Girl” at Her Majesty’s, Sydney, with such success, is said to have issued a writ for £SOOO damages for breach of promise of marriage against Mr .Ernest Tyson, the semi-millionaire. Grey, the Geelong solicitor, recently sentenced to five years in Melbourne for defalcation, I note in an exchange—the Adelaide “Critic”—is the man to whom Carrie Moore owes her present good fortune. He took her up as an infant prodigy and helped her along very generously. Miss Moore has made a great hit in “The Casino Girl” by her introduction of an imitation of Miss Irene Franklin. n • * • • Miss Heba . Barlow, a Wellington serio-comic, is appearing at the Royal, Brisbane, with Messrs Sinnotte, Scales and Bragge’s Vaudeville Company. * • • * • Wellingtonians who have travelled by the Suez Canal and Colombo will remember the Bristol Hotel, at the latter town, and some may know Mr Henry Davies, the popular manager. From the Ceylon “Independent” I learn that gentleman is engaged to be married to

! Miss Evelyne de Worms, the prima donna of the Dallas Musical Company, which has been touring that dependency in “The Belle of New York.” ; » * * * * ! The Greenwood family, after having completed a lengthened tour in Queens, land and th e northern rivers, have returned to Sydney. ! TKb loading members of the Wilson I Barrett Company now in Australia are, lin addition to their chief Messrs Am- ; hrose Manning, George Barrett, . Basil I Gill, Horace Hodges, J. Carter Edwards, Harry Armitage, Alfred Rivers, Misses Lilian M’Carthy, Gertrude Boswell, Daisy Belmore, Marjorie Cavania, | Edyth Latimer, Cecilia Wilman, Maud : Twamlcy, Mr George Smith, who has ■ tho entire business arrangements in \ hand and half-a-dozen others, also an j expert perruquier from Clarkson’s and a costumier. 100 scenes' will be car- ; ried, 820 costumes and xuJ wigs. After i the Australian and New Zealand tour j the company go on to South Africa, rei turning to England for a season of ten ior twelve tveeks, and eventually to' ! America for six months. Mr Joseph Came, an English actor, who returned to London after a long engagement in Australia with Mr Brough and other managers, had scarce, ly set foot in England when he received a cablegram from Mr Tyrone Power, asking him to return at once and join the new Power-Crane company for a tour of the colonies. Mr Came set out almost immediately. Mr Carne took up ! the running in Titheradge’s parts when ; that notable actor left the it j will be remembered. Mr Game's acting | was greatly admired when he appeared in Wellington with the famous Austra. lasian Comedy Company.

Mr Louis Bradfield is always a tower of strength in musical comedy, and his brightness, good humour, high spirits, excellent voice, and method of singing in: “The Silver Slipper” at the London Lyric are reported to be of immense ser. vice to the piece.

Flora Anstead, says the Adelaide “Critic,” who has so long played old women for Bland Holt, is now in Kew Asylum at the age of 66. She came to Australia about 1875, and then played juvenile lead with the Lewis’s as one of the late Albery’s Two Roses at the justopened Bijou. Miss Anstead was long financially bled by a worthless husband, and when his death was reported she married the late Jerry Dodge, who had no sooner died than the wastrel bobbed up again. * * * * •

Mr E. G. Saunders opened a- short season of Japanese plays at the Criterion Theatre, London, in June last. At the head of the company, who come from the Imperial Theatre, Tokio, are the famous actor Otojiro Kawakami, and the no less renowned leading lady Sada Yacco. •

Mrs Maesmore Morris has received excellent newspaper criticisms throughout an English provincial tour for her performance of the gipsy Flogdo in “A Debt of Honour.”, I have always cracked up Mrs Morris for an Australian beauty and actress, but it appears that she is a native of the West of England and came out to the colonies in her girlhood.

« 9 «, < * * Marie Lloyd was welcomed back to Melb. Bijou with a unanimous roar ot approval. Without a doubt, Peggy Pryde and Marie are the two most popu_ lar items Rickards has imported. 1 hear Mr P. R. Dix has made special arrangements to bring Marie Lloyd over here.

Sir Henry Irving withdrew “Coriolanus” after a week’s run at the Lyceum. I should imagine that means the loss of a lot of money for him, or t*>e syndicate now in wifh him. « * » * • Miss Florence Young, who appeared in Wellington with the Gaiety Company (Mr J. C. Williamson’s) some years ago, has been studying with much success with Madame Marchesi in Paris. * * ♦ * ♦ Cyril Kcightley has signed on for two years with Nance O’Neil. So hrs his wife, once known ‘as Miss SpillerA critic has been noticing the tremendous slump in farcical comedy with, in the last few years. The Broughs tried their patrons recently with “The Brixton Burglar,” but it did not succeed. Arnold certainly did well, but even Arnold would not risk a return trip. Mr* Atholwood will join 'Wilson Barrett’s Company. Mr Clifford Walker is achieving some considerable success in Christchurch, I am glad to hear. The excessive heat in Paris last June, combined with the general theatrical depression had the effect of closing many of the theatres of the French capital. Kubelik the Wonderful performed the acrobatic feat at St. James’s Hall, London, recently, of playing Pagan ; ni’s Fantasia on Rossini’s’ Moise entirely on one string of the violin. M. » « * • The American musical plays are apparently falling very flat in London, and the houses have to be extensively “papered.” “The Belle of Bohemia’’ and “The Girl from Up There,” are botli failures. “The Fortune-Teller” at Musgrove’s Snaftesbury Theatre is said to bo more successful. The doom of the musical plays, which are merely a string of musical turns, has been pronounced both in Wellington, "Said Pasha” et hoc genus omne recently shown here, to wit, as well as in London- “The For-tune-Teller” is a genuine opera, and it is only genuine open that the iev’tal in public taste will tolerate nowadays. Hrf Gresley Lukin was tendered a complimentary performance at th e Theatre Royal, Launceston, on September 22, 1861. The programme included the drama “Dreams of Delusion,” act 5 of “Richard H 1.,” and the farce “The Rifle and How to Use it.” —Tasmanian Exchange. This is a copy of an old advertisement from the Launceston “Examiner”: "Theatre Royal, July 12, 1862, Bulwer Lytton’s comedy ‘Money.’ Mr Gienley Lukin as Alfred Evelvn and Miss Kate i Warde as Clara Douglas.” * \* . * * * I In another old time record, Mr Gresley

Lukin was cast as Henri in ‘‘The Old Guard/’ produced at the same Theatre Royal, September The evergreen Dave Gardner, the veteran Ethiopian, is at present touring Tasmania with a Tivoli Company. Mr.* Charles Hammond, a well-known Launceston (Tasmania) young man about town, has accepted an offer from Mr Tyrone Tower to join his company as a “reading juvenile.’’ The popular Tasmanian is to start his stage career at the Princess Theatre, -Melbourne, in September. t What is it that makes “Floradora” so attractive? asks the Sydney “Daily Telegraph.” The universal answer is “Be. cause it is bright, pictures)! ll6 , lively and tuS'eful.” But there are other pieces of the same class, with the same attractive qualities, but they nave not boomed like this one. The reasons of its success in Australia are that it has been well presented by a first-class company, and the enormous popularity of the prettiest and most charming number in the comedy, “Tell me. pretty maiden.” It is that which will live longest in the memory of the thousands who have seen “Floradora.” The universal attractiveness of this particular air is shown by the fact that it is now being sung as a special contribution in many music-halls of the older worlds. A London paper says that Dan Leno is to receive £250 a week when no ap pears in the next Drury Lane panto. How nice it must be to be a successful musichall star. * « * « *

The Nance O’Neil Australian tour has resnlted in a profit of something like £15,000, most of which Nance has invested in diamonds, says an exchange.