THEATRICAL NOTES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19802, 29 May 1926, Page 23

THEATRICAL NOTES.

OYEIL MAUDE’S RETIREMENT. “FILTH ON AMERICAN STAGE.” ' A NEW IRISH PLAT. (Feom Oub Own correspondent.) LONDON, April 14, Among the passengers who landed at Plymouth from the (Junard liner Mauretania was Mr Cyril Maude, the veteran actor, who has left the American stage for good and intends to settle down in his beautiful home at Dartmouth and write Ins memoirs. In the course of an interview, Mr -uaude said: “There is no question when 1 shall retire. I have retired.” He had come to the conclusion, he added, that it was time for him to retire, and he would rather retire now than outstay his welcome. lie proposes at Christmas, 1927, to go back to America for a three-months’ lecturing tour for which he has been made an offer by Major Pond, and he will probably return to the English stage for a farewell appearance in a play called “Peter Grimme ” Mr Maude stated that there was a tremendous lot of filth to-day on the American stage owing to the fact that there was no censor. Ho considered the censor in England was a safeguard of the morality of the stage. The control of plays in America was under the direction of the police, and as there were all types of police, there was naturally the possibility of a great deal of graft. He did not think, he said, there was any prospect of the English public approving of plays of the type produced in America, although plays in England were of a different character from what he would have expected a generation or so ago. From the point of view of the actor, he was convinced that such plays as are being produced in America are wrong, and he preferred the type of plays popular in England. He has written, in collaboration with Mr Charles H. Towne, a book which will bs published shortly. “AUTUMN FIRE.” There has arisen (writes the dramatic critic of the Daily Mail) a race of Irish dramatists who can create real characters and present natural scenes, and show the tragedy and the comedy of piosaic lives. This is the case with “Autumn Fires,” by T. 0. Murray, produced in London at the Little Theatre In its essentials the story is the old, old tale of May and December. A farmer approaching old age marries a young woman- His daughter, made bitter by a love disappointment, resents (he marriage. She sees evil -in all things. The elderly husband falls from a horse, and is ill in consequence. The young wife and the old man’s son feel themselves drawn to each other. But, the woman is perfectly honest. She begs tbe young man to leave her. He requests a last kiss —a perfectly chaste kiss. And the old man. near death, sees them embrace. He turns his son from the house. He sends bis wife from him. He dies with his rosary in his hands, praying. declaring that God alone is left to him. That is the simnle story. Nothing very much happens. There is neither murder nor adultorv, nor oven anv hig element of humour. The plav is composed mostlv of homesnun talk. And yet “Autumn Fire” hes a bigger appeal than many a piece that; has'bedroom scenes and carefully prepared enigrams and things of the kind known as “daring” Every moment lives. And the reason is that, every word of tbe dialogue suggests sincori y; (bat sry character rines true. It is a nla.y that should-have . ifs hig a. lineal to those who do not ask only for “sensations.”-