NOTES BY PASQUIN.

Otago Witness, Issue 1780, 2 January 1886, Page 22

NOTES BY PASQUIN.

(Contributions from the Profession chronicling their uwvunents and doings are invited. All communications to ba-addresed to " Pasquin," Otago Witness Office.) The appearance of the Emerson Minstrels at the Princess Theatre on Boxing night was the occasion of a surprise to a good many people. The company proves to be excellently constituted, and the loss of the Ooghill brothers has •by no means impaired its efficiency. The places of tiie latter have been filled by the addition of Mr Alf. Lawton, who makes an excellent " boues," and Mr H. Carroll, one of the best | falsetto vocalists we have had here. The amount ot money crammed into the Princess Theatre on Boxing night was £185, and represents abont the biggest takings, at ordinary prices, that can be remembered in that house. If this kind of thing continues during the three weeks' season and is kept up in other towns, Mr Cunard intends at tho close of the tour to purchase New Zealand, debts and all, and run it as a dairy farm. It is difficult to say what particularly strikes one about the Emerson Miiihtrels. Messrs Walsh and King strike each other repeatedly and very hard, and Mr Emerson strikes every convenient portion of his anatomy with a tambourine and strikes also amazingly funny attitudes. The Emersonian attil udes and the Emersonian gait are, in fact, a study. If " the great and only Billy "ashe is termed on the programme, did nothing else but walk and attitudinise, ho would without doubt have hisawlience in a roar. But he does other things. He sings more than passably, and mimics with nearly all the effect of a Maccabe. He made a tremendous success the first night, and has been keeping up his record ever since. Messrs Walsh and King dance nimbly side by hide in sweetly cut shooting suits, they sing with one accord like a two-headed nightingale, and then Mr Walsh does something rude, to Mr King, and Mr King does something unkind to Mr Walsh, with an axe or a tomahawk, or anything that comes handy. Neither are any the worse for it afterwards, arid they shake hands and proceed to kick- " belltoppers " about in a style that causes the eyes of hat manufacturers to moisten with visions of future wholesale orders. This kicking ib really astonishing. I suppose Walsh projects his toe to an altitude of eight or nine feet, ami King "raises him 1 ' and goes a foot or .10 higher. Up to tho time of writing no spines worn broken, and no legs had become detached from either gentleman's trunk. As lor Mr Harry Carroll, lie carols truly— " light as lark at morn," as Sir Walter Scott puts it. But there is nothing really " larky " about Carroll. He comes on serious, even pathetic business, transacts it with a grave face, and then bows genteelly and goes home to bed. The ease with which he alternates falsetto and chest singing is, I am free to confess, enough not only to tickle the ears of the groundlings, but to open the eyes of the gods. His ballads are cunningly selected to ive the singer an opportunity for this extraordinarily clever display. Take his last one, for example, " Kiss papa, dear, good night." It is a domestic dialogue, in which both parents address their intant offspring. The mother in one falsetto line adjures baby to " say ta-ta to pdpa," and the father, in the next line, responds quite naturally in tenor, " While mamma, clear, is here." Meaning, of course, to imply, " I am not going to be left alone with the little brat and have him tearing my whiskers out by the roots." Then, " One more kiss for papa," says the mother, and " Bye-bye, uaby dear," says the father. •'This business has been prolonged "quite j enough," thinks paterfamilias, " get the boy to sleep at once, and let me to billiards." There 16 absolute fidelity to nature about this ballad read in this light, but Mr Carroll's singing would make a less truthful song successful. j As regards the other members of the company, Messrs Bent, Stanley, and Gus Pixley are particularly funny in their sketches. The former affects feminine costume and tragical-farcical gestures, and the latter, in sketch No. 1, affects an abnormal corpulence and gutta percha legs. In No. 2 he is a feeble melancholy wreck, clad in blood-stained bandages, and speaks in a thin small \-oice that might have been bottled up for a century or two in a hollow tooth. The lastnamed farce, " You'll find out," is, by-the-bye, the production that used to be played nightly at several of ,the London, music halls — Pavilion, Canterbury, &c. — some seven years back. It is fair to Messrs Stanley aud Pixley to remark that they play it infinittJy better than their English predecessors. To bring" my remarks upon the Emerson Minstrels to a close, the troupe have a very good lri&h step dancer iv Mr Dan Tracey, more than passable tenor and baritone in Messrs Benjamin Clark and Alfred Holland, and an excellent quartette in these two gentlemen assisted by Messrs Gunning and Augello. Our second Christmas amusement consists of Miss Georgie Smithson's entertainment at the Lyceum, and this, too, has turned out to bo a good attraction. The " female Maccabe '' herself is as sprightly and indefatigable as of yore, and goes through the character impersonations in her "Artists' Studio " sketch with all her old vigour. Mr Holloway is amusing in the burnt cork line, and there are wisely introduced one or two of those ditties known as "topical songs," which cost so little and go such a very long way with an audience. One of these, " You'll have tomake other arrangements," is levelled specially at the Premier and the Colonial Treasurer, an unkind thing to Mr Stout, seeing the important connection he has with the Lyceum Hall and an unfair thing to Sir Julius Vogel seeing' that he is confined to his chair and cannot actively retaliate with a club. Still, " You'll have to make other arrangements " makes people laugh and that is probably what Mi&s Smithson wants' The pantomime " Dick Whittington " was also a decided success on the first night, Miss Georgie Smithson taking the title role, Mr Holloway the part of Booby Neversweat (a name conceived in ignorance of the stifling atmosphere that would prevail in the hall on Saturday evening), Master Rolo playing the star p°rt of the oat, and Messrs B. C. Aspinall and E. A Stacey appearing as the aldermen. Majeroni and Wilson's Opera company opened in the Theatre Royal, Chrihtchurch, on Boxing I night, to a big house, of course, and the fact of Mr Luscoinbe Searelle being very nearly a native of Christchurch invested " Bobadil" with special interest to the public of that city. Composer and artists were called before the curtain at the close of the second act, and applauded to their hearts' content. In Auckland the Christmas draw is Mr George Darrell, newly arrived in New Zealand with his " Sunny South" company. The leading lady of the company is Miss Annie Mayor, who was playing with him iv Adelaide iv "The, Forlorn Hope " &c, some five or mx years back. Miss Mayor who always showed considerable aptitude 'has' since then made remarkable strides inherprofession,notwithstandingtheillnessthatwithdrew her from the stage a year or two ago. Her younger sister is also with the company, wbifcb

includes our former acquaintance Miss Chrfssey Peachey, and Mrs OllyDeering, Joseph Raynor George Forbes, Harry Jordan, J. P. West. &o Miss Alice Brabazon, <gtat 11, the Auckland prodigy, has been astonishing the Sydney public by her pianoforte playing at one of Mr Charles Bright's lectures on " The Devil." An unnropitioua association for the little maiden