THEATRICAL & MUSICAL NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2080, 4 January 1894, Page 37

THEATRICAL & MUSICAL NOTES.

Ooitributltni from Wit Proft iilon obronlollng their nstemeit* ■n<l dolnfi an icriled. All eommunioktioui to be aMretMd ti "PMqnln," OUjo TClnen OSw. The Brough and Boucicault Company h&ve made an excellent beginning for their New Zealand tour, the houses, during each night of the Dunedin season being packed in all parts. Mr Lohr left for Christchurch at the beginning of the week, Mr Wallace remaining in charge. — Steps are being taken to form a second orchestral society in Dunedin. The matter has. bo far progressed that the services of Signor Squarise as conductor have been secured, and a "stock of music, has been ordered from England.

The Palmer-Beaumont Company have been drawirg well in Christchurch during the festive season.

" Bernard's Wonders " is the title of a circus troupe which has succeeded in drawing in Christchurch for some nights past. The special attractions are a small artist named Ethel and a troupe of Japanese performers. Fred Millis's success in the world's metropolis has not caused him to forget his old colonial friends. As usual, a copy of his capitally gotup calendar for 1894- has reached me, and I heartily reciprocate the genial ventriloquist's Seasonable greetings. Mr J. W. Foley with his " Widow O'Brien " Company and Hayes's Circus are still in the Otago country districts^ A telegram in a Sydney paper states that Mr Walter Bentley wfh recently proceeded against in the Police Court on three charges. Bentley did not appear owing to illness. In the first case Henry St. Clair sued the actor for £16, wages due, and an order was made for the payment of £15 15=i, with costs. In the second case Henry William Stoneham and Henry Alexander .Douglas proceeded against Bentley for the non-f nlfilment of contract, each claiming £5 per week for two weeks' performance. The evidence for the prosecution Bhowed that the complainants were engaged for a tour including Broken Hill, but the engagements were terminated owing to the illness of Bentley. In the first information an order for £5 was made, and in the second case an order for £7 was made, with costs in bath iastances.

An old Dunedin friend sends me the following items from Melbourne : — The Princess Theatre opens on Christmas Eve and the Royal on Boxing Night. Miss Jenny Xee is the Princess hero.^ Oar old friend Densem is at work again, singing at the Saturday Exhibition concerts. James Wilkinson and Amy Johns are at the Temperance Hall Saturday concerts. A return of the Beaumont swimming family to Frank Clark's Theatre of Varieties has proved a big show. It is an excellent show. Mr Beaumont kept under water B£min, only coming up for ssec. Mr Beaumont joins George Bignold in about a month as a " pull up " to the pantomime. I saw "Miss Hilda Spong— who is to be leading lady in Walter Howe's company during his coming Maoriland tour — with George Bignold in "Romany Rye." She is very pretty, has a sweet face, and has an innocent fresh kind of way with her, and fine eyes that appeal to the favour of her audience. I think

the tour should be a success. Bob Gavitte is to be business manager. Among the New Zealanders here I see Bell Taggart is goiqg out with aMr Norton and a small company. She is now almost as good at whistling as at horsemanship. Mr James Moore, Miss Maggie Moore's brother, has just brought ont his own daughter. She is to dance a fairy or skirtdance solo in our pantomime. She is a pretty girl, with a wonderful head of hair— a perfect glory, fully a yard and a-half long. Some little New Zealand pupils of your old friend Miss Georgie Smithson, the sisters Rose and Mabel Andrews, made a start in Sydney at the Royal. Mrs Thimel, the proprietress of the Royal, is delighted with them. Everyone seems to be in some sort of an eugagement just now, bub how long it will last is another matter. That good old Dunedin pressman, Alf. Wyburd of the Bondi Aquarium, Sydney, deserves to get on, for, wet or stormy, if there are not five people in Bondi he pays just the same all whom he has engaged. I have seen that occur on more than one occasion, and, as a consequence, he is universally voted a white man, and Sydney professionals would miss his cheerful face round the Commercial Hotel on a Tuesday — the day he selects his Sunday company.

Mr Harry Hill, who visited this colony, of which he is a native, as a member of both Mr Walter Bentley's companies, writes from the Bijou Theatre, Melbourne, that he has recently recovered from a severe attack of typhoid fever. His friends in New Zealand will be pleased to hear that he has now secured a good appointment with Messrs Thornton and Arnold's 11 Charley's Aunt" company. Mr C. Morton introduced on Saturday, October 21, one of the most unique novelties that have ever appeared upon the variety stage — the Eilanyi Troupe — who give a series of living tableaux which represent the works of great artists whose pictures are famous in all parts of the world. The fidelity with which these are produced is perfectly marvellous. Each tableau is rapidly formed, and leaves no cause for the audience to grumble at any delay.

The "Second Mrs Tanqueray" is deemed immoral in America. Mrs Kendal, whose acting in it has been unfavourably criticised, unbosomed herself to an interviewer. " Perhaps the reason you do not like the play," she said, "is because your freßh young country is too good to ne"ed it. Your men are all noble ; your women pure. You need no lessons in morality. Poor, wicked, old London understood and appreciated the value of the object lesson in the ' Second Mrs Tanqueray,' for the Second Mrs Tanqueray lives in London, and has a coronet on her carriage." And the Yankee did not drop to the palpable sarcasm. The dresses worn in the first act of " Little Christopher Columbus," produced lately at the Lyric Theatre, London, cost upwards of £1350, and in the second they came to a like amount, and with one expense and another the manager, Mr Horace Sedgerjdrew cheques for fully £7000 before the curtain went up. The dresses were most elaborate, but they did not look so well made up as they promised to do in the drawn designs, and they had to be altered. The Sketch interviewer recently asked Miss Janette Steer, leading lady in "The American Bride, recently running in a London theatre, if she ever suffered from stage fright. "On first nights," was the reply. "I see nothing. I just go through it all as if in a trance. Luckily I don't forget my words ; they come easily." "In what country are the audiences warmest ? " " Well, I like Scotland. Nowhere have I such demonstrative houses as in Edinburgh and Glasgow." "Do I feel the part I act? Certainly; I couldn't play a bit if I didn't. I have to hold myself in or sometimes I should cry on the stage. It's very well to have tears in your eyes — better still in your voice —but they mustn't fall. "

The same interviewer had a chat with Miss Phyllis Broughton lately, during .which he asked, her opinion of the cause of the failure of so many comic operas of the present day. Miss Broughton replied that " the books are so bad nowadays : they are so disconnected. In fact, they're something between comic opera and burlesque, and have the weak points of both." " Tell me," went on the interviewer, *' who is the mast graceful dancer of the day — present company excepted ?" "I'll tell you who was the most charming of all time, and that was Kate Vaughan, who really started the skirt dancing, which, I believe, in her case did not spring, Minerva-born, but came gradually from her experiments. She was delightful to watch, and when I think of her those pretty lines of Mrs Osgood come into my mind :—: — You'd think the music in the air Waved the fair vision to and fro. '