THEATRICAL & MUSICAL NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 1957, 27 August 1891, Page 32

THEATRICAL & MUSICAL NOTES.

OratrikitUma tttm tfc* rnftarim •kiwlollmi. Ikttr mimnu l^« U«f «n tBTIMd. All •MUMilMtteu to U *Uxmt* W* Piattta," Otap WitMM OSm.

Hugo's Buffalo Minstrels occupy the boards at the Princess Theatre, and are drawing bur business. On the opening night a dense crowd surged round the tioket boxes in the yard, whioh reminded old play-goers of scenes about the entranoes of large theatres on Boxing Night, when everyone— especially the gods— is desirous of seeing the curtain rise on the pantomime, With such a rush outside, it goes without saying that the house was well filled below stairs. Every available inch of standing room waa occupied, even the space usually allotted to the orchestra being invaded. Upstairs a similar soene met the eye. Every seat was filled, the passages were occupied, while at the several doors eager Bpeotatora orowded. When the ourtain rose habitues recognised that tbe company had been almost completely reorganised since its last visit here. Miss Verne occupied her usual position as interlocutrix, and Mr 0. Hugo held the tambo at one corner, and Mr W. Hugo- the bones at the other, tbe efforts of eaoh being ably supplemented by Tom Makinini, Charles Yobs, Vincent Magee, and Wai. Gregory respectively. As at present oonßtituted, tbe oompany presents a variety rather than a minstrel programme, but there is variety and plenty of it, and tbat it is acceptable to the audience is evident from the continual laughter, tbe vociferous applause, and the faot that every item on tbe long programme is enoored. Burnt cork combined with low prioes (2s, Is, and 6d) evidently hit the taste of Dunedin amusement seekers. L. J. S. writes : — " Westport would have been very dull of lato in the matter of publio amusements — as no professional companies have recently come this way — but for the praiseworthy exertions of an amateur band of minstrels calling themselves 'The Blaok Squalls.' Two excellent variety entertainments have been given by this talented troupe to oapital houses. The orohestra and City Band had some well-selected numbers on the programme, whioh were rendered with marked precision and exquisite finish. The first night concluded with a * reception' given by Gorgon, the Patagonian giant, and is small spouse, Zola, a Mexican dwarf, who made their first and only appearance on this or any other stage on that occasion. The peouliar pair received an enthusiastic welcome from the audience, who were charmed with the chatty dwarf, and awed by the height and taciturnity of her husband; but where they hailed from — whether from the heights above or the depths beneath— no man can say, for immediately after the performance the comical couple disappeared in a mysterious manner and have never since been seen or heard of." The shock of earthquake felt in Wellington on the night of , the 20th was felt rather severely at the Opera House, where the Dobson-Kennedy Company were performing the "Sbanghraun." The first intimation was a slight rattling ot the large brick building, and this was succeeded by a sharp shake. Many of the ladies in the audience screamed out loudly and rushed towards the doors of the dress circle and stalls. In the meantime several men in the audience kept shouting out to the ladies to keep their seats, and this eventually had the effect of stopping the panic whioh seemed imminent. It is almost needless to state that the performance was interrupted for a few minutes until the whole of the audience had resumed their eeatfl.

Madame. Bernhardt's Australian season has been a great success. Madame Bernhardt's private secretary (Mr Symondson) states that during the two months the company have been over there the takings amounted to £36,000, " but," added Mr Symondson pathetically, " we are taking very little of it away with us, the expenses have been so heavy. We have 40 people to pay, and of course Mr Williamson, who bad the theatre, took a large share. Madame is cry highly pleased with Australian audiences." Miss Nellie Stewart, the Australian actress, has been engaged as prima donna in the comio pera " Black Eyed Susan," whioh is to be produced at the new Shaf teabury Theatre.

Janet Abhurch commences a Launceston season on October 3. " Orpheus," in the Sporting Review, writes : —"Madame Bernhardt on Monday was en evidence driving and walking through Auckland. 'Orpheuß' makes it a rulo never to interview, and congratulates himself on escaping the smart repartee which the witty lady launohed at the heads of some representatives of the press who tried to draw the divine one. She told them that after so rough a passage she preferred filling herself to filling the newspapers I" In a temperate and well considered letter to the Melbourne Daily Telegraph, Laura Villiers comments on the criticism "The Dancing Girl " and the members ©f her company have been subjected ta in Melbourne- After detailing the circumstances conneoted with the securing the rights of that pay and " Woodbarrow Farm," and the engagement of the company, she says : — " After I had purchased 'The Dancing Girl' and 'Woodbarrow Farm,' as the two best and cleverest pieces in London and America, I set about engaging the best available actors and actresses for their interpretation. It was represented to me as out of the question to oast the pieces out here, and that an entire English company might prove an attraction. We did not come over posing as some celebrated oompany, some combination of many years' standing. That would attract of itself. The pieces themselves were supposed to be the attraction, and we came sitnply as a oompany of capable actors and actresses in our variouß lines of business for the interpretation to tbe Melbourne publio of the pieces we have brought with us. Each and everyone of us in turn have been attaoked ! Out of the six prinoipal members, three especially have received abuse. In defenoe of two of these— Mr A. Bernard and Mrs A. Bernard (Miss Emily Stafford)— l oan only say that they have held for the last 15 years important and successful engagements with nearly every first-class manager in England, and have never yet bad their ability called in question. For myself, I oan only say that for some seven years past I bave ' starred ' in all the principal theatres of Great Britain ; and that I have done bo not unsuccessfully can be proved by my ciroulars of English press opinions of our best critics, of whioh any one in Melbourne can Ret a copy at the theatre box offioa. Drusilla Ives may be quito unsuited to me, I admit; but these English opinions surely show Borne slight justification, on my part for having attempted to piny ifc. Ido not write of these in aay spirit of vanity or selfconfidence. Any little amount of these I may have possessed have been crushed out of me since my arrival here. I write this to Bhow we are not a company of impostors foisting ourselves on the Melbourne public in positions to whioh we have been unaooustomed in England, and I write it also to show that a Melbourne

publio opinion as to tbe merits and rank of artists may sometimes differ from an English one. May I ask if all the now established English favourites were approved of here on their first appearances ? " Tbe Era says :— " Mr Fred Millis, the ventriloquist, manipulates very amusingly a oomio figure, which he calls Terenoe O'Reilly. The other evening, when sorewing off this puppet's head, at tbe Metropolitan, he was interrupted by a female in the stalls, who relieved her overcharged feelings by exclaiming, 'Oh i don't do that,' which disturbed his gravity, and gave the audience fits."

Just before she left America Mrs Kendal is said to have resisted a little attempt at flattery with a good deal of her usual sense and humour. A young lady at a fancy fair tried hard to persuade her to buy an exceedingly girlish bonnet, and finally, it is said, popped tbe bonnet on to Mrs Kendal's bead— though what Mrs Kendal's own bonnet was doing just then does not appear. However, the story goes on to Bay that tbe purchaser (that Bbould have been) looked seriously at a handglass, and then delivered herself somewhat as follows*— " Very nice, my dear — very nice, indeed. Mutton is very nice, too — extremely nioe; but it isn't lamb, mf dear, and it doesn't go with mint sauce."

The Era has the following :—" Madame Bernhardt has again, in effect, protested that she is an artist and not an exhibition. Stopping at Honolulu, on her way to Australia, she went ashore for a little while. Now her manager, Mr Abbey, had formerly visited Honolulu, and had so much enjoyed a drive through tbe lovely scenery of the Sandwich Islands that he thoughtfully provided a neat little carriage to meet Madame Bernhardt. But Mr Levey, a manager on the spot, determined to go one better tban this, and sent a gorgeous waggon, festooned with roses, in whioh to display bis captive celebrity to the public. He thought, perhaps, that a little extra in tbe way of advertisement might be allowed in the native home of the Sandwichman;,but Sara did not agree with him, and with a good deal of emphasis refused to get into his waggon, to stay at his hotel, or to have anything to do with anything that was bis. She stepped into Mr Abbey's unpretending carriage and drove away, and the publio stared just as much."

The Daily Times Melbourne correspondent writes as follows on the 19th : — The renowned pugilist made his first appearance on the Melbourne boards on Saturday night. His Sydney season was a failure, and Melbourne promises to be worse if possible. The piece in which he appears is an Irish drama with all the worst faults of the Irish drama unrelieved by any of its excellencies. The great John L. plays the part of a blacksmith, and in the fourth act he has to " knock out " some individual or another He ought to come on in the first act, but he could not be found for this appearance on Saturday night, and consequently the audience were not rewarded by a sight of him until the fourth, and then he was somewhat excited. The conduct of the audience was enough to make him so, and the following quotation from the Argue' notice will give your readers some notion of the remarkable scene:— "The galleries were crowded, j and the other parts of the house were tolerably well filled. It was a night of Olympian revels. Their godships enjoyed themselves to their hearts' content. Theirs was the comedy, and it was all impromptu. They addressed some of the actors and actresses by name, sometimes in terms of ironical endearment, and sometimes of mild remonstrance ,and sorrowful: reproach. They called old General Dare 'Daddy,' and they exclaimed with regard to the wicked young Irish gentleman, • We don't want no more Hoiloway; give us the boxing-boy.' At the same time they treated the pugilist with a degree of levity approaching 'irreverence. They were audaciously facetious on the subject of his invitation to his men 'to drink a song,' and they were far from being suitably impressed by the solemn tones of his voice when he exclaimed to his brother, 'Leave me alone, and let me think.' Those ribald juveniles seemed to imagine that thinking was not much in his line. At length the person who attempted to play the part of the blacksmith (this is the way in which the pugilist actor is spoken of) was &o irritated by tbe bantering interruptions and ejaculations of the boys upstairs that, advancing towards the footlights, and looking down into the orchestra, he huskily exclaimed, ' I'll put a tail upon some of you bye-and-bye, and then yell respect those that are in the audience.' This alarming menace was received with shouts of ironical applause, and subsequently, as often as the fun grew boisterous, the boys in the gallery would cry out ' Order I' in tho tone of voice adopted by Mr Royoe in ' Jack Sheppard'; 'do respect the audience ' ; and there was a fresh outburst of merriment. Altogether it was one of the most remarkable first nights ever witnessed in a Melbourne theatre."

Misß Terry in her *' Stray Memories " in the New Review authoritatively disposes of a pretty little story about Mr Irvine being "so struck with her aoting," one very foggy night when she was playing with him at the no* defunot Queen's Theatre in Long Aore, that he promised that "if ever he had a theatre of his own he would give her an engagement." Many, we fear, will grieve to learn on such uuexceptional authority that this story is " all moonshine." As a matter of fact, Miss Terry tells us : "I was just then acting very badly and feeling ill, caring scarcely at all for my work at a theatre or for anything belonging to a theatre." Her real enoourager was Charles Reade, who was wont to address her as "Eleauora Delioia." Miss Terry's full baptismal appellation, it appears, is Ellen Alicia.

The plot of " Pretty Miss Smith" has already baen employed more than once by the author of " The House on the Marsh. '? It is the gradual evolvetnent of the real character of an attraotive villain, bo aB to make it apparent even to the preooqupied perceptions of a girl who is disposed, at all costs, to blindly believe in him. A few rather clumsily contrived horrors are sprinkled in, tnd an attempt at a murder ; but I all ends well, and the cordial, cheerful villain 1 disposes of himself by suicide. The reader will be more easily consoled for his loss than for the waste of time involved in pursuing bis adventures. The London correspondent of the Daily Times writes as follows:— The monstrous absurdity of French feeling, and the utter absence of humour in France, are shown clearly by the recent difficulty which Mr Augustus Harris had to meet apropos of his Btate performance at Ooveat Garden. MM. Las&Ue, Maure!, and others are, of coarse, under contract to the lessee of Covent Garden, and therefore boand to sing whensoever he pleased and before whomsoever he chose. Bufc (norn de chien ! t it was before these accursed viermacs they wre to sing, these patriots. Ryvaacho ! Alsace ! and a Berlin ! Jftmais '. To Ml the truth the singers were not ranch actuated by a feeling of animosity against the Kaiser, but were more exercised lest the wrat h of the Parisians fhould be visited upon them when they retnrael A- d truly their fears were not unfounded, as may be gathered from this grave diBcu j sion. M. Got, of the Oomedie i Francaise, told an iaterviewer that " un-

doubtedly the situation of these French artistes, called upon to sing officially before the German Emperor, is very trying and painful. I say officially, because, if I mistake not, the ceremonial will compel them to certain formalities of etiquette. Thus they will have to approach the imperial box and bow before the Emperor. It is even asserted that when the Emperor arrives— that is to say, after the beginning of the performance — the orchestra will strike up the German National Anthem. That will render the situation of ;the artistes still more painful." However, at last the French artistes made up their minds to sing, when Mr Harris did a thoughtful thing, and resolved to relieve them from the annoyances to which they might be subjected upon their retnrn to Farid. There names were therefore struck out of the bill, and the programme was altered. Luckily the de Reszkis are Poles, and the Ravoglis Italians. Hence the best was left in, and perhaps it didn't matter after all.

Mr DOyly Carte seems to have been successful in coupling another pair of collaboratenrs at the Savoy. Exeunt Mr Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan ; enter Messrs Dance and Solomon. It is clear that the latter have imitated the former: Mr Dance flagrantly and fairly successfully, Mr Solomon not so much and less successfully. Bat this is of no account providing the patrons of the Savoy I find the entertainment to their taste. In the libretto Mr Dance has evidently taken •• The Mikado " for his model. In both Mr Gilbert's work and " The Nautch Girl " there is a hapless, lovesick heir to a throne, a scheming adventurer, and a threat of death. You will see a Gilbertian touch at the start. Beebee is a Nautoh girl, whose father was rescued from drowning by a rope, which was pulled by a pariah. Hence arose a pretty question. Had he lost caste by this, had the contamination travelled along the rope? The law courts had been busy with this question for 40 years. But meantime the Rajah's son, Indrn, has fallen in love with Beebee, and won't wait ; he resolves to reduce himself to the supposed casteless level by eating "potted cow." He does so, and then just as they are married, the Appeal Court decides in favour of Beebee. The penalty for marrying a Brahmin is death, and when the scheming vizier hears this he rushes out for the police. Indru is seized and thrown into prison, but Beebee manages to escape with the Nautoh troupe, who have been offered an engagement in Europe. The Rajah is a much embarassed man. Not only has his son got himself into this mesß, but he himself has the "bump of consanguinity" so developed that he can never resist the pleas of his numerous relatives. You have only to present yourself to the Rajah and say you are a cousin three times removed and his heart warms to you, and he puts you into a place of profit. This is how the Vizier has got his post, and how he. deals by his duties you shall hear. The Vizier is the keeper of the idol Bumbo, and in his capacity as custodian has stolen one of Bumbo's diamond eyes. Having endured this .insult long enough, Bumbo comes to life in order to be revenged. As they can't find out who took the eye, he determines to throw the Rajah and all his relations into the crocodile pond. One of these is a lady of mature years on the outlook for her affinity (you will remember her in the " Mikado "), Chinna Loofa, who has , alreadyjcontrived the escape of Indru in the hope that he would prove her affinity. He, however, ungratefully repulses her, and so she "spots" Bumbo and makes up to him. Bumbo is charmed, and finally makes an exception in her favour. All the other relatives, including the Rajah and Ipdra, shall be killed. On hearing this the Vizier, who is in a terrible funk, confesses that he is not really a relation at all. At which the Rajah, who has discovered the thief of the diamond eye, and now has no reason for silence, accuses the V'zier of the crime. Beebee turns up again with the Nautch trqupe, and 10, on her neck is the missing diamond, which has been presented to her by an admirer on her European tour. Bumbj is pacified by its recovery, and pardons all save th<j Vizier, who forms a meal for the crocodiles. Then he and Chinna go back to their shelf. Mr Solomon's music is catching to the ear, and while not ambitious serves well enough. Mr DOyly Carte has staged the play magnificently. Of the actors Miss Lenore Snyder, the American who took the part of Beebee, is very pretty, but not distinctive in voice or acting ; Mr Denny is a droll Bumbo ; and Miss Jessie Bond a capital Chinna. Mr Rutland Barriogton aa the Rajah is all one expected to find him.