NOTES BY PASQUIN.

Otago Witness, Issue 1915, 3 August 1888, Page 28

NOTES BY PASQUIN.

The Mohawk Minstrels camo to a full stop abruptly iv the middle of last week, and are now scattered in impalpable fragments through space. The largest fragment, in the shape of the Perman family, left by the Melbourne boat on Thursday. Perman pere was understood to eva the show, but it had collided rudely 1 with adverse destiny at various stages of the New Zealand tour, and the net profits of the venture required, I believe, a microscope to be properly appreciated. It is understood that an impressionable young jockey— Huxtable by name— has accompanied the Permans to Australia, and will risk a limited amount of bullion in an endeavour to get them well past the winning post.

According to rumour more than one of the late Mohawka has good cause of complaint as to the manner of the break up. Messrs Harry Lewis, the baritone, and Wai Prior, the agent, are endeavouring to get up a benefit performance in Dunedin. I wish them success.

" Hans the Boatman " did big buvlnebs for a short season (finishiug last Saturday) iv Cbrktchurch. The theatre there has M'uce passed into the hands of an amateur " Mikado " company who have also drawn big money. Mrs Patience Blaxlaud Kignold, mother of the well-known actors George and William Rignold, has died in England at the ripe age of 88 Messrs Broußh and Boucicault are playing together in "Vice Versa" at the Sydney Criterion, and causing any amount of fun.

A novel and important scheme is being organised by Mr A. M. Palmer, the well-known New York manager, and Mr Dion Boucicault. This is the formation of a corps of stage novices in connection with the Madison square Theatre, who shall bear about the same relation to the regular company as cadets do the army. Mr Boucicault, perhaps the most accomplished stage mentor in the world, has been engaged at a heavy ealary to take entire charge ©f the school — for that is what it will really be, a dramatic school on a new plan. One principle which has been agreed upon is that the pupils will receive pay instead of pay being exacted, and they will remunerate the school by pledging their services. Mr Boucicault says the process of tuition will be actual engagement in performances from the start. He means the young people to begin as actors and actresses, not aB students. Boucicault ■will also contribute a signed article to the New York Herald every week on dramatic|matters, he being the first contributor to that paper who has ever been allowed to put his name to what he has written. It will be a new departure in criticism, as Boucicault will write no notice till at least *hree days after a performance, and will invariably piy for his seats, refusing free passes. The latter is an innovation I have always advocated for all papers.

A new entertainment, which is making a furore in Paris society, consists of private marionettes, which are made to act the works of iEschylus, Aristophanes, ■ Shakespeare, Cervantes, ;Calderon, Lope de Vega, Machiavelli, &c. The first men of letters in Paris read these works, whilst others pull tho strings which makes the wooden actors and actresses move their arms and feet.

Our old friend George Francis Train attended a New York theatre recently for the first time, so he said, for 20 years. ■ He attracted the attention of the whole house by his hilarious laughter. Mrs Bernard Beere contemplates a starring tour in the States.

Mrs Chippendale, who visited the colonies with Miss Marie tie Grey —whom she left, by the way, before they reached New Zealand — died in London on May 26, thus surviving her husband only a few months. She first appeared on the regular stage in 1855 as a member of a company touring the northern circuit. Subsequently she joined the stock company at the Theatre Royal, Dublin, with whom she remained two years. Under the norn de theatre of Seaman she made another stride upward in her profession at Manchester towards the close .of 1859. Under a second stage name — Miss Snowden — she made her London debut during 1863, when she essayed the part of Mrs Malaprop in " The Rivals" at the Haymarket, a part that evt?r ranked as one of the finest examples of her style. From 1865 until 1874 Mrs Chippendale continued a member of the famous company under J. B. Buckstone, and took prominent parts in nearly all the original productions and the revivals placed upon the boards during that period, remarkable in the history of tho theatre, although not the most memorable years in the long record. In 1875 she migrated to the Court, and in 1878 to the Lyceum, where, when Mr Irving revived "Louis XI." she -was the Martha of the production. After a provincial tour, organised by herself, Mrs Chippendale joined forces with Marie de Grey, with whose company she acted in Australia for a brief time.

Mrs Brown Potter has sailed from New York for Paris, intending to recruit herself in that quiet village during the summer. She left amidst cartloads of flowers and the adieux of a crowd of relatives and friends. There is the inevitable lawsuit! between her and Mr Miner, her manager, over the season just closed. An American actress named Fanny Thomas, keen of apprehension, makes some remarks upon stage habits and traditions that are worth quoting. " Every broken-hearted heroine," she says, " weeps on exactly the same part of her arm, on just the same part of the chair or sofa, with precisely the same number of ' boo-hoos ' since the first good weeper made a hit by doing just so. The ' hit' is left out now, however, when we anticipate every time the repeated items. Who does not writhe in anticipation of the stago exit ? The two-step stride, the closedfist thump on the top of the door, the turn, the sudden raise of head a«id other arm, then the turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, of climax, and the shoot from sight. Same old exit every time, sure. Yet, never on .earth, "in any circumstances, has any one of us ever seen a human being go out through a door in just that way. I can imagine the first time it was done. Some grand night when some grand king of the stage, who was a man before ho was an actor, made an exit in that way. It was new, it was consistent •with his looks, tones, and way of doing things. It drew down the house. Since then, there being no copyright on gesticulation, this has bern adopted as the trade mark of every exiter from that day."

Madame Balfe, who iv her time played her part in society and on the operatic stage, has just died, aged two months short of 80. Madame Bflfe, who was an Hungarian vocalist (Lina Rcsen), was married to Balfe in 1832, three yorfrs before the composer produced his first ro,;ular English opera, " The Siege of Rochelle." S'« lived to see the production of the whole of th : numerous operas [that Balfe composed, and !•->• g enough to witness the shelving of almost all ot them. With the advance of musical taste people rightly sneered at the feebleness of most of Balt'e's music, the sickly sentimentality of its fctylr, and the absurdity of the librettos to which many beautiful melodies were set. "The

Bohemian Girl " still holds the stage in the provinces, although it has been banished from London. But even "Satanella" is now only recollected for that delicious tune " The power i of love," while " The light of other days " is practically all that remains of " The Maid of Artois." Madame Balfe bslieved her husband to be a second Beethoven, and she never ceased inveighing against impresari and audiences for neglecting his works. She lived with Madame Nilsson in Kensington Court, and had a grant from the civil list.

Walter Damrosch, the celebrated New York conductor, is about to make his London debut at Princes Hall.

It is stated on fairly good authority that the match between Lord Dangan and pretty Miss Phyllus Broughton, of the Savoy Theatre, ia " off," and that there will be a breach of promise case in consequence. The " naughty, naughty peers " seem as bad as ever. Christine Nilsson, one of the sweetest singers of the age, was to take her final farewell of the public at the Albert Hall on June 20. A young composer recently submitted to a well-known music publisher a song entitled " Why do I live ?" After reading a small portion of it the publisher wrote across it as follows :—": — " Because you sent the MS. by post instead of bringing it in person."

A company is to be floated to rebuild Her Majesty's Theatre for ballet operetta, &c. There was a £900 house at Drury ; Lane oa the night of the revival of " Trovatore," with Madame Scalchi as Azucena.

Miss Winifred Emery (Miss Ellen Terry's clever " under-study " at the Lyceum) has been married to Mr Cyril Maude, of the Vaudeville Theatre, younger son of Colonel Maude, Master of the Royal Mews. There was a tremendous crush at the Chapel Royal, Savoy, to seethe ceremony. Many conflicting stories have been published concerning Adelaide Neiison's origin. The fair actress herself was averse to speaking on this subject, but an Englishman, who knew Neilson from the time of her birth, has supplied the following to the New York Mirror: — "Her name was not Neilson. She was boc-n about eight miles from where my boyhood was spent. Her mother was a handsome woman, and her father was a Spaniard. When the girl grew to be 10 years old she was sent out as a factory girl in an establishment between Leeds and Rawdon. Her pay was 3s 6d a-week. But she made very little progress. While she was throwing the shuttle over tho cloth-weaving loom her mind was otherwise occupied. The proprietor of the factory was finally obliged to dispense with her services', because she insisted on spouting Shakespeare and causing the other hands to neglect their work. There have been many accounts of Neilsou's childhood, but this is the true one. I knew her personally, and can vouch for the circumstances I have stated."

Mr and Mrs Kendal intend to visit America after the Presidential election.

The play-going public ia difficult to understand. Londoners have just insisted on a happy ending in the case of Dan Mylreaand his sweetheart in " Ben-my-Chree," and have also obliged Ellen Terry to similarly alter the finish of "The Amber Heart." At the same time they have stormily objected at the Royalty Theatre to the change made in the adaptation of Hawthorne's romance " The Scarlet Letter." Directly the first nighters saw that Roger Chillingworth, Hester's malignant husband,jhad been lynched, in order that the Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale, the companion of her long-borne shame, might live on happily with her as his wife, there was a perfect uproar. How explain this thueness ? Minnie Palmer and her husband (John R. Rogers) are again in England, and will play in London and the provinces. I hear no word of the contemplated return to the colonies, and New Zealand in particular.