NOTES-BY PASQUIN.

Otago Witness, Issue 1855, 10 June 1887, Page 28

NOTES -BY PASQUIN.

A statement is current to the effect that a Mr W. D. Calthorpe, believed to be identical with the Mr Calthorpe Mallaby who mismanagedthe Alleyne and Wade company in New Zealand, is running a piece called "The Mormon," at the Comedy Theatre, London. Moreover, that this piece is none else than ,*The Bigamist," Mr Fergus Hume's play which, was produced here some time ago. The author is now stated to be Mr W. D. Caltborpe himself. The Glassblowers are at Blenheim. Mr , Lohr brings Mr Locke Richardson, the well-known Shakespearian reader, to New Zealand shortly. A new play by George, Leitch was to be produced at the Bijou Theatre, Melbourne, on the 28th of last month. Signor and Madame Majoroni appear in the. piece, and there is also to appear a new candidate for histrionic honors in the shape of an eagle, a pupil of Mr Leitch. The ferocious bird is to swoop upon a child perishing in the snow. If the bird should make a success, it is intended that it should permanently adopt the stage as a profession, but appearing only in parts properly suited to its abilities. 1 The death of Mr W. E. Sheridan, the tragedian, had something of the tragic element about it. He was struck down sud- j denly with an apopletic stroke while witness- ! ing the performance at the new opera house in Sydney, and fell back in a terrible fit into the arms of Mr Foley, who carried him into Millthorp'e's private bar. Medical assistance was at once procured, and with the assistance of Mr Dampier, Mr Sheridan wasput to b,ed. Mrs Sheridan (Miss Louise Davenport), who was in Melbourne fulfilling an engagement to Messrs Williamson, Garner, and Musgrove, was summoned by telegraph. The deceased lingered for a few days before he finally succumbed. Millis, the ventriloquist, and Bertie Ward are in San Francisco, having just arrived from New York when the last mail left. A similarity has been discovered between Sir Charles Young's famous play " Jim the Penman " and a German piece called " Der Advocat," which failed at Munich some years ago. The latest trick learnt by the American dude is the use of diminutive bouquets as missiles. "Last night," says a New York paper, "a party of assinine dudes sat in a box at the Grand Opera House and deliberately threw diminutive bouquets into the faces of some of the Evangeline girls. The theatre was fairly jambed — there must have been nearly 3000 people there. The proportion of women to men was about one in a hundred. Pretty and popular as Evangeline has been, and still is, it has probably done more to demoralise the stage than any other agency. The men go to see its women. It is an exhibition — not a performance. This is just a shade "rough" on Mr Wilson Barrett, but it is written by one of the , best American critics, "Nym Crinkle," whose real name, if I mistake not, is Wheeler :—": — " There never came an actor to us who was so afraid of standing on his merits as Mr Wilson Barrett. His broad assumption from the first has been that if he made friends with everybody his talent would be recognised. It is only a proper tribute to his personal qualities to say that he has succeeded irt making friends of everybody. Nofcody gives such dinners. Nobody has worked the whole round of social amenities and gone out of his way to take every editor's salt like Mr Barrett, and the universal verdict is that he is a splendid fellow. That is where criticism stops. Unfortunately it. is possible to be a good fellow without being a great actor. And that is where Wilson Barrett stops. His Hamlet is not by any means a revelation. All that is new in it has been laid on extrinsically, like kalsomime, not evolved intrinsically, like an organic growth."

Alfred Ayres, the American ortheopist, also has his little dig at Wilson Barrett's Hamlet in this style :— " In the character of Hamlet, Mr Barrett is never for an instant anything but Mr Barrett speaking the lines of Hamlet ; and Mr Barrett speaking them badly, too. ' How like a god ! ' he cries, when he should cry, 'How like a GODl' Do we say, how like a saint, how like a savage 1 No ; we say, how like a SAINT, how like a SAVAGE. Mr Barrett would be more profitably employed in studying old readings than in arranging new versions. Not even Mr Barrett's pantomime is intelligent, and as for fasial expression, he has none."

There has been produced before a vast cro *rd of- Gaiety naatineers" of high degree a new and singular comedy by H. M. Paull, entitled " The Great Felicidad." This proves to be a plnv <lo.nling with fraudulent mining speculations, sandwiched with a- strong loveinterest of a more or less illicit kind. The heroine (magnificently played by Amy Roselle) has married one villainous mining speculator (played by F. H. Macklin) and is pursued by another villainous mining speculator (finely acted by Brandon Thomas), while all the while she still loves her former flame, a stockbroker (very badly represented by Arthur Dacre), who has married a girl who was madly mashed on Villainous Speculator No.- 1. The morals all the way round are a little risky, but the play abounds in interest and has some .powerful scenes. Mr Beerbbhm Tree has joined the ranks of actor-managers, and will run the Comedy Theatre. This house, by the way, is the one at which our old acquaintance Mr Calthorpe Mallaby ; is reported to be domiciled with his purloined play. Fallacy somewhere ! as they say in " Ruddigor e."