NOTES BY PASQUIN.

Otago Witness, Issue 1734, 14 February 1885, Page 23

NOTES BY PASQUIN.

[Contributions from the Profession chronicling thir movements and doi)\gs are invited. All conumenications to be addressed to " PasQuin," Otago Witness Ofiee.] Since I last wrote Miss Marie de Grey has been seen in two new characters at the Princess Theatre. " The School for Scandal " held the boards for a couple of nights, and on Saturday was produced Mr H. Hamilton's adaptation of " Moths "— an unauthorised adaptation, concerning which, it will be remembered, Ouida displayed so much indignation at the time. As to the Lady Teazle of Miss De Grey, it was a pleasant piece of acting, charming in many respects, as is everything she doas. Whether it was a correct and consistent representation of tho character is, ho.tever, anoihar question altogether — a question I should bo inclined to answer in the negative. But there was a very great deal to admire. The quarrel *>cene,forexamplo, was a judicious departuro from established custom, and something* waa gained by tho altfkfttion. But this and other scones were not imgßved by the presence of Mr Hilton in the caet^3 Sir Peter. Mr Hilton has done excellent work in a variety of characters duriDg his stay here, but he was aa unlike Sir Peter Teazle sb could well ba imagined. Mr Brodie made a really good Charles, and Mr Morton Selten would have achieved a success as Joseph Surface if he had grappled with tho character a little more pluckily. Tho atmosphere of " Mothß" (the novel) is unpleasant, but the story is nevertheless forcible, full of dramatic incident, and has about it a certain element of poetry. This element has not been conveyed over the footlights, and as a consequence the first two acts fell unmistakably flat. Miss De Grey strove earnestly enough to depict the loneliness and helplessness of Vere Herbert, thrown suddenly into the midst of the doubtful society affected by her mother, the wretched Lady Dolly ; but the romance of her first meeting with Corveze at Trouville was wanting. Still Miss De Grey made a decidedly good impression in the Bcene where she sacrifices herself to tho Ruaßian ruffian, Prince Zouroff, and throughout all the subsequent passages with her brutal husband she played with an unaffected dignity and pathos that won her hearty applause. The last two acts, in fact, went very well indeed, the stirring situations that follow each other so closely arousing the excitement of the audience to a very high pitch. Miss De Grey showed some degree of passionate power also in her final scene with Lady Dolly; but notwithstanding all this, the majority of her admirers would, I am satisfied, prefer to see her adhere to comedy. In the cast of " Moths'," Mr Hilton made an excellent Zouroff, Mr Selten was fairly good as Coreze, and Mr Franklyn was quite overweighted with the part of Lord Jura, " Mins Florence Cowell's Countess Sonnaz was a very effective piece of acting. Mr Fleming Norton, of Picnic Portraits celebrity, is about to commence his long- talked of New Zealand tour. He opens in Sloan's Theatre, Invorcatgill, on Friday of this week, nnder the management of Mr R. G. Bachelder, The Clark and Ryman Company have been playing at Invercargill during the week. A very gratifying proof of the humour of Mr J. F. Sheridan'B " Widow O'Brien " was given recently at Wellington. In the third act of the piece, wherein the Widow is attacked with mal de iner, a female in the body of the theatre exhibited such an exuberant appreciation of the situation that she literally laughed herself into a fit. She was removed from the theatre, and restored with difficulty. Mrs G. B. Lewis' Company disbanded at the conclusion cf their Auckland seasun. Mrs Lewis returned to Australia, and her late business manager, Mr J, W. Dodge, with his wife (Miss Flora Anstead) has left for San Francisco, The Montague-Turners have just wound up a Sydney season, and have opened since in Brisbane. " Confusion " is drawing as well in Sydney as it has everywhere else, notwithstanding that the Bulletin caustically remarks:— "Speaking Shakespearingly, and looking at 'Confusion' from a ' Divine William ' point of view, thore ain't much in it." The Dunning Opara Company have started another season in Sydney most successfully with " Boccaccio." Mr Appleby is, of course, first favourite as usual, bub the whole of the company have been warmly received. Miss Stanley, the contralto, is back again in their ranks. Mdme Sarah Bernhardt had a quarrel wi' u h Sardou over the rehearsals of " Theodora," and they only made it up during the laßt three weeks of the repetitions. Thereupon the star went into her work with desperate energy, being on the stage daily from 12 to 6 o'clock. Sardou used to watch 'be proceedings from a stage box, and fiii t -.."1>- expressed himself rempli dejoie et d' admiration. It iB stated that the proprietor of the Bedford Music Hall has under engagement Brooks, one of the survivors of the Mignonette tragady, and that he is introduced on the stage nightly. ■' A new and very handsome fchnatre called the "Cjotnedy" has been opened in Manchester. The bjfjding and furnishings cost £15,000, and there ia seating . accommodation for 2000 persons. The latest news from America tell us that the health of poor John M'Culloch, the famous Virginious, has not improved, and that he is now regarded as hopelessly insane. A partnership entertainment has been started by Mark Twain aud the Creole nOvelibt Cable. The former, of course, does tho funny business, and the latter reada scones from hib own books and sings hia own pretty songs. The suggeßtion is made that Irving, who made so much money during hia late eeasorj at the Star Theatre, New York, should visit the States regularly. It is pointed out that the New York season occurs in the London dull season, and vice versa-, and that if the English tragedian built a theatre in New York, and spent half the year in that city, hia skill as a triage manager would alone make him success- • ful. m?tp 8 r a £ a Figa !"V B exceedingly severe upon Mr F. O. Barnaul for what is undoubtedly bis latest plagiansm-viz., the piece produced at the Avenue Theatre-" Just in-Time " The critic, after a, withering exposure of tho sources from which the editor of Punch has derived a good many of his dramas and comedies, dozen niß article as follows :_« The writer is not tho only one of hiß tribe which fattens upon th* bramß and imagination of French playwrights; but the fact of having a quantity of imitators does not make Mr Burnand's case any the better. _ What we ask is, when shall we have a law wnioh will protect intellectual property, in tho came degree as is protected soap and chocolate," J

A prominent theatrical writer in London has at length struck a blow in defence of the much criticised Sarah Bernhardt. Alluding to her illaeao of a few months back, which Parisian papers hastened to turn to ridicule as an advertising dodge, he Bays : — " The truth is that since she left the Maison de Molifcre so abruptly four years ago, tho onco adored quacn fell, and met with that great killer of all Parisian deities- ridicule. She threw off the yoke, would not bend to convention, and il- d to America. Tho Parisians have never forgivaD her since, and several of the papers siezed the opportunity to cry out that all her doings were riclame. The unfortunate woman cannofc go out of her own house but what she is criticised. After a very arduous tournee in " Macbeth," followed up by almost bankruptcy, Mdme Earnhardt fell ill — seriously— and left Paris tor a few days to rest at her villa at St, Addrease. One day when she got up for tho first time, she saw by the papers that the genuineness as well as the_ cause of her illuGss was being criticised in Paris. Surely Mdrae Bornhardt is hardworking and courageous enough, She has not been ill for years, and now t>he is laid up for the first time, she certainly deserves condolence, n®t sceptical ridioule: Her letter to the Gil Bias was dignified and touching. She complained of the utter heartlessness of her public, saying that Bhe gavo bereelf up entirely to them as an artist, but begged them to leave her private Ufa alone, Sho vaguely hinted at leaving the Btage in eighteen months' time, when all her present engagements will be terminated. Continental cities are busy ereoting statues to their great composers. A statue of Weber is to be erected at Eutin, where the composer was born, in 1786 ; and one to Haydn, in Vienna. , The four quaint and clever Midgets, at Piccadilly Hall, ace associated in their entertainment with a juvenile pianist and a choir of diminutive boys. The hall is in fact turned into an outlying colony of the Kingdom of LUliput, and the smallest man who goes there comes away with a satisfied feeling of his Btobdignagian proportions. The mosr artistically-decorated theatre in the United States is the " Haverley," in Chicago ; lessae, Mr C. H. M'Connell, a gonUeman with good taste and a big balance at his banker's. The ornamentation is on a novel scheme, the chief materials u«ed being stained glass, mirrors, and ijapiounaohe moulded in arthtic patterns in high relief, and tinted to the metallic hues of b i^tea copper, bronza, and gold — no one colour predominating. Both walls and ceilings of entrance hall and foyer are covered with tbia embossed design ; the doors and windows facing the sSrest are rilled with rich stained glass ; the doors of communication between the entrance hall and foyer are panelled with mirrors set in gilt arabesqued with black ; and the box office, of pentagonal form, is of the same construction. By multiplying the lights (Edison's incandescent burners) beyond the actual needs of illumination, light is made an ornament itsalf instead of a mere adjunct to ornament. Over 1000 burners are used nightly, the only theatre in the world which is its equal in tbiß respect being the Grand Opera, Paris. It is, however, upon his art galleries that the lessee mostly pride 3 himself. The pictures and sculpture represent artists of the leading schools, and in every nook and corner are scattered articles of vertu, brie a-brac, Japanese screens, bronzes, &c. Another new place of entertainment in London. The Military and Naval Stores in Regent street (formerly Newman'B Stables) are to be converted into a theatre on the oldfashioned plan of pit, stills, and b6xes only. "The Girls are tne Boyß for Me" is the queer title of the latest popular comic song .in London. The monetary hitch between Mdrne Patti, Colonel Mapleson, and his backers was satis factorily adjut>t«d, and the lady's threatened return to Eugland avoided. A very uncomfortable incident occurred at a recent arisiocvatic concort in Prince's Hall, London. Whilst Miss Agues Zimmerman was playing the piano a strong smell of burning was noticed, accompanied by smoke and flame from the flooring. Miss Zimmerman with great presence of mind remained perfectly cool at the piano, waiting until the attendant^ had cut away the vrood and poured a few pails of water on the smouldering mass. Her conduct averted the panic that seemed imminent. Concerning Miss Mary Anderson's .Juliet Mr Clement Scott says :—": — " An ambitious, popular, beautiful, self-confident lady, but as far from Juliet as darkness from dawn. The performance is a most excellent representation of Miss Mary Anderson, the favourite of the hour. She has never come out of bersolf. She appears as Parthenia, Pauline, Galatea — but she is always Miss Mary Anderson Never once is sho anyone else, The best of it ia, tho public does not want her to be anyono olse. They want to see Mary Anderson, and that is all. They are content, and that is all that is wanted ; but-why any trouble should bo taken to mount " Romoo r.nd Juliet " when Mi"*& Mary Andsrson looks jivit as well, if not better, on a pedestal as Galatea, puzzles the uninitiated. . . . The play is a melodrama a% acted here, not a poem. The Nurso of Mrs Sciriing and tho Friar of "-11 "rthur Stirling could not be botfcar ; there is ta-3 true Shakespearian ring about both of thorn. As for the rest it is all modern to a fsuJfc, and by modern T mean flippant, uncultured, and essentially commonplace." Those who are curious upon the subject 'of stockings, may be interested in the following dolivorance by an American actvoss. " Stockings," she says, " form one of the chief ohjncts of expense to an actros3 nowadays. You know, we would not wear anything but silk of the best quality and make, and they aro always splen uidly embroidered. Thoy cost all the way from five dollars to thirty dollars a pair, aud one does not think anything of going through twenty-five pairs in a season. You see, one deniros to have plenty of changes, and besides they soil eaßily. Theo told me the other day that she has ninety-six pairs of silk hose, and she is constantly adding to tha number, Sbo has a epocial trunk, padded and lined with satin, to keep them in. Some of them are beautifully painted, and on the instep of one pair Breton, the famous French artist, haß limned two beautiful faces. Minnie Palmer probably has the largest collection of stockings of any American actress. She always has hor eyes open for new beauties, She toli m« that sho had found some gems in a French house in London. Sho goes in very strongly for stripoß and embroidery. Lotta al.=o has a fine collection. She is rather thrifty, however, and her possessions represent rather the natural accumulations of time than an ardent love for the beautiful. She prnfers pale blue and salmon. Then there is Lillian Russell. She has a passion for handsome hose. But, bless me ! what outre colours and designs she takes up. Sara Jewett lovea brightness and poray, and her stockings are unusually palo pink or ciel azure, and made more lovely by paintod birds' heads or flocks of butterflies. Eleanor Carey has a refined and demure taste. She will only have blacks, browns, greys, oi* mauves, with parhapa pir>k or rihw thread clocks, Mrs Jfloreuoa will only woar lisjs.

thread stockings, white or brown in colour. Mdme Janauschck's tastes are st.iU more singular. Her stockings are thick, heavy woollen tbitsga, that Bhe koitß herself between the acts of her plays or whilo she ia riding on railroad oars."