AROUND THE WORLD.

Otago Witness, Issue 2456, 10 April 1901, Page 55

AROUND THE WORLD.

(Feoii Otago Witness Specials.)

Dear Bis, — It is not generally known that there 13 a championship beit for clog dancing, but Mr J. H. Wood, a promoter of clog dane-

competitions, announces that he is again j, after a two years' illness, to start his classes, and the championship of the world will be danced this month m London. This is the third competition of the kind held. The sum of £1 will be allowed to each dancer not getting a place in the finals, except Australian and American dancers. On the same date a ladies' championship competition will take place. The prize in this contest will be an extra jewelled belt. The -belt was last won by Miss Mmmc Ray, who defeated Miss Bella Perman at the London Pavilion in a match lor £100. The winners will be booked, and afterwards their services will be sold at auction to proprietors or agents, for periods of three, six, or nine months.

Here's a wheeze which is a fact l While Johnny Coleman was staying in Chnstchuich quite recently -with his wife and a small boy (not unknown there) that he picked up in Dunedin, and who was appearing in his famous scarecrow dance, he happened to come down to breakfast rather later than usual, an,d on"seating himself at the table, could not make out the cause of all the laughter. After fruitless attempts he called the lady of the house, who volunteered the information that on sitting down to breakfast the lad was asked what he would take, and on being served, the waitress asked, "What about grace?" The boy looked up, and seemed non-plussed for the moment, but suddenly turned round, and with a grin peculiarly his own, said, " Well, I don't know what it is, but I will try some.' Fact! One of the finest acts of its kind ever seen here was that given by the Dunbar trio, at Fitzgeralds' circus. These artists*eeni as much at home in the air as they are on terra, firrna. It is not generally known, that they aie all of

the male ■-ex, but all the more credit is cine to tho make v\> of 0.-c of then' at least.

Montj,onury'b BiObLope and Vaudeville Company are in !oi a boom, to judge by the bex ieceipts of the fii-t week of their thice weeks' fcase.i in We'hnp-tii'i ' "Moi iy" dc-eives gool luck, and may it stick to him — Vour*-tmi\. ALBERT EDWaRDS.

Roj-khampton, Maich 24

Dear BiS, — I dc-it know that 1 h.no anything pait'cula'K iiitercstine; to impart to jou, but a pronifce is a. promise.

"U'.z hff, only been \ cry fair since last writing vcu, -.s ye have had almost incessant ra>r for neailv three weeks 1 certainly think Mr Clement V. T rajrge should attach the "'Pavne Family" to the weather bureau , as there bad been a r>iouo;ht until the day we entered Queensland, and ha'-dly a fine day f-mce.

The pro ;netor of Blue Bell Hotel at Gladstone (Mr Cowan) has built a beautiful new theatre at Gladstone He took me through it yesterday, and I was very much surprised to find such a fine place for ?o small a town. We show there next Saturday night (30th). It has a new Lipp piano, and iq beautifully seated. In fact, everything is thoroughly ' up to date. ' Madame Dante is the only one who has shown there yet.

Everyone in this colony is always inquiring for Miss Belle Handricks, and won't believe I am myself when I tell them. They say, Surely you aie never the "little girl" who was here nine years ago, and was so young and plump? So you see I am not being complimented, am I ?

After the trying heat here, I am situply longing for a tr in through New Zealand. However, I think you have had quite enough of "bollringmg" over there to last for some considerable time.

Mr Saunders had his thumb put out yesterday at Gladstone. I was coming downstairs with one of the lady members of my company, and a local solicitor said something I toot exception to about my companion. Result, I called on Mr Saunders to chpmpion us ; fight ensued, and Sau:iders's hand is at present in rather bad condition. Think, however, that the said "Johnny" will realise that there are ladies in the profession who are to be respected same as elsewhere for the future.

Tuesday, 26th

Opened here last night, biggest house since I have had control ot the show. Theatre jammed, crammed; had to refuse money. I know I ha-ie "Bis's" congratulations, have I not? —[A who'e heap of them. — Bis.] Everybody seemed delighted with the show, and I was actually asked by a gentleman to-day to introduce him to my mother l as he wanted to congratulate her on the way she managed her business ' Not bad, was it •>

The rain has ceased, and it is terribly close. We go to Mount Morgan to-morrow, then work back to play Gympie Good Friday and Easter , as they wouldn't allow me to have a sacred concert here on Good Friday night. My permanent address is Co Nicholson's Music Warehouse, Sydney " Kindest regards from brother Harry and, — Yours sincerely,

BELLE PAYNE,

Adelaide, March 30.

Dear Bis. — liene Franklin, who warbled through Australia "Won't you take m? back to Dixte?" has had her request granted by a New Zealand engagement with P. R. Dix.

Dave Caston, through Xew Zealand under the Dix and Fuller managements, Bod Bell, AH Lawton, and Lottie Collins are at the Tivoli here under Rickards.

Mr R. Nitschke, the populai baritone, not unknown, m New Zeal-and, and who has been a resident of Adelaide for some time, receives a farewell concert en April 13, the eve of his departuie for England.

G H. Snazelle, whose new picture show "Oiu Navj " was a great success here, plays Geelong on April 8 and 9, and folio ws with a long season at Sydney Palace.

It is lumoured that Chaile3 Warner at tha conclusion of his present South African tour will Msit Austiaha with "Hamlet," "Captain Swift," "Road to Rum," and "Drmk." The rumour is pretty solid, for dates are inquired for m the chief centrss. It is just 12 years since he was la3t here.

Hugo Fischci's death by his own hand at Colac last week was greath deplored by many Adelaide people He was well known here, and for many years ran a fine tobacconist business m King William street Hugo was l"st here as advance for Rev. Charles Clark, under R. S. Smvthe.

Marie Llovcl, the big R.ckardian attraction, carries with her over 60 dresses, and has no rival on the English stage. Manager Edwin Geach when he saw her m London was much taken with hei style. "See her and you see an artist " — Yours truly,

LIMELIGHTS.

Dear Bis, — In jour Stage Gossip in issues of ths Old Reliable of December 5, 1900, and March 20 of this year jou have paragraph? on "Drink," Charts Reade's dramatic version of Emile Zola's novel, "L'Assommoir. ' Grant me space for a few words thereon. You mention the great success- which has attended this great moral play. "Drink" always goes down, and although I am acquainted with no reason in particular why it shouldn't, I still intend making the circumstance m question responsible for this discouise on -a revival I witnessed at London Adelphi of Charles Reade's drama 12 months back last January.

As to the motive of my visit, however, neither I nor contemporary scientific history appear to be quite clear. Peihaps it was the weather -^at drove me to "Drmk" — it was bad enough, ftaven knows 1 (meaning, of course, tho weather) ; or it might have been that I was led to the Adelphi by a spirit of repentance following upon the previous night's indulgences at the Covent Garden New Year fancy dress ball. This is quite possible, for I have heard it said more than once that diunkards often go and see Mr Chas. Warner's Coupeau that they may take warning by his serpentine state of health, and piomise themselves for the thousandth time to limit their between-meals gargle to a couple of bottles of gin a day. I believe that (prior to the ie\i\al I witnessed) it is some veais <=ince "Dimk" had a real London revival — that i a , a revival at a London theatre built on the map of London, and not on the opposite side of a beastl> long joiunev by road or rail. Seeing that some 11 jears have elapsed between "Drinks" m tins colony. I r>eed make no apology foi leviewing here the play as it came under my notice, s<nd more especially when Mr Charles Warner intends touring the colonies with Chailes Reade's great play m the near futuie. Moral plays are not so plentiful that we can afford to slight them when they come and I am determined that youi readers shall share with me the many spiritual benefits accruing from a brief review of the facts of the case. Why should the naughty plays monopolise all the attention? Very well, then.

The curtain rises on Gervaise's bedroom. Gervaise is the wife ("at all events, she thinks she is," as the music hall artiste warbles) of one Lantier — and one Lantier is quite enough for anybody, and a good deal more than Gervaise can manage, seeing that she confesses to us, in the gentle language of the enemies of Ibsen, that he has "been on the loose all night with that cat Virgime." This observation on the part of the virtuous heioine is the first of a proti acted series of "points" which go to justify the description of "Drink" on the bill as "'The Stirring Moial Drama." I mention this because it is so seldom that the

official (UiT.ilu.iiiL.il a. a pl«tv is culiobuiatcd by dialogue- <■ . d situation.

'Jo pio^i-cd with instances of ' Diinl 's" tnesomc n. spit i«" In! it_\ As -ooii <i' 3 dcnaiss s it end, I'lkxljo b^-gc, v ho iuis. ci ltd to con 'o t hei by telling hei oi lie. husb<U'd'& ii Jiccao-'l\-ol = , has left ;hc bcaiooi i, Coai.LOu siiolls i.i duel want's to ki,o\\ wh.t be can da for hei' .She tells him oi hei lui^b -lid'a l.eglect of hei (lather an indiscreet conletsioa, uudei the cuci instinct), and then plumps hei nose down on the tab c and crie-. He s-.jfc, "Do-o-n't crj, Fcothing'y, just like that, and adds, "Let mp see jou smile, now 1 " Ger\aise promptly gi\ e= a fair imitation of the old

" Chailcj'« Aunt" poatcis, and C'oupeaa exclaims patroaiaingly, "That's, light. Bcfoie he leaves hei to look foi Lsu'tier be tells hei that she is "ihe dcucsi little wo.->iaii in the world," and t li.it thaie is rollimg he wouldn't do for her. The i to ieho\e the awful strain of "stirring moral'" expectancy from which tLe audienca is \isiblj suffering, he volii-itceis the welcome mfoun-ition that he is "onlj an honesi chap." AftCi tLr.t, ss a greater relief still, he leaves the premiH3'

.Enter Lantier, who bullies her, knocks her about, sends her out to paw;n his trouser= (not his only pan), and then deserts her on the capital thus acquncd. To cut the first half of a long 3tory shoit, Gervaise becomes a widow on the unconfirmed report of Lantier's death abioad, and is v ooed and won by Coupeau, and mairied to him a!:o. Coupeau has up to this time been, a teetotaller (on the recommendation of Gouget, loreman of engineering works, and as honestly in love with Mrq Coupeau as Coupeau was when she was Mrs Lantier), but now, on his wedding day. to countenance the old seviri; that "love is blind, he takes a drop too much. In the 'next scene— "Outsxde Yirjjniic's House — he take 3 another drop too much, falling fiom a scaffolding on to his head, but this was not because he was tight, but because a board was loose. His pals celebrate his release from tho hospital by dragging him into a wine shop and standing him tc a, little regiment of neat brandies, leaving him to pay for them, and also to lose his wages over a wager. Lantier is the ringleader in this (he wasn't really dead, you know , that was only his fvn), because he he-atcs Coupeau with an unde-yn:g he-ate, and wants him. to go home to his wife v, ith a number one size fit of the wiggly-wiggly jim-jams.

We come now to the hou3e of Mr and Mrs Coupeau. (But are they Mr and Mrs Coupeau m the sight of the law 9 Why, certainly; for when Lantier married Ger\aise he was the husband all the time of somebody else. I ought to have mentioned this, when I uiforined you of Lantie&'s return, because j ou must have been frightfully concerned as to the ultimate fate of poor Genaise's charactei ) It is m this scene that the play becomes really interesting, for it I=3 hero that Coupeau jerks away at all the zig-zag symptoms of which brandy has made him the victim. I have never before known a rnaji to get into such an alarming condition of intoxication, although I have often seen men drink brandy at the bars of the theatres. Perhaps Coupeau, in hi", desperate desire to get properly raving, Ind bean m the habit of piocuring h-s brandy from railway refreshment rooms, which brand is even more deadly than that "Sold at the b.irs of this theatre" — meaning no theatre in particular.

Coupeau dies of his zoological visions, and Gervaiso is a widow p-gam — that is to saj , she is a real widow for the first time, and a widow for the second time m tho ordinary way of speakiiig, ?3 it were. She is seenig angels m the snow (which is more respectable than seeing Siiake3 in your bpots), -v.iien who should come along and carry her into a restnuiant for =ome hot soup but Gonget, who used to "lorve" her when they weie children together in the old village — which was before she was Mrs Lantier aud befoie slie was Mrs Coupeau.

The next thing we know is that Gervai«e is to l>e Mrs Gouget — and here the author very sensibly stops the play. A whtezo can be worked to death, and Gei\ rise's wheeze of sampling new husband.? was getting worn out. The moral of the play is that a man should be a total abstainer, though a woman may marry just as often ss she pleases. The acting m the Adelphi levival of ''Drink" of 12 months back was ffi.ii. Of fovrse, Mr Charles Warner was u.ll right as Coifceau , lus perfection m the pait is an event of stage history, and a ver3 r important event, too. Mr Fuller Melhsh stood out well as Gougcl, bocause lie is Mr Fuller Hellish, and also because Mr Fuller Mellish is an actoi : but I have seen Miss Grace Warner (Gervaisei and Miss Sydney Fan-brother (Phcebs Sage) do better things, and I am glad ol it. Mi CLirles Cooper s Lanfcier was a, performance that dirln't earn a single hiss, which ;s bo conii>]i merit to an actor playing villain. He did the naughtiest things m a spirit of luvenile petn•lance only . when he assaulted his wife and left her witho it a sardine m the house lie did it mst f.s though he were a tiresome httlo boy in the taiitiums. I am. sure Charles Reade must have meant Lantier to be played more V"-ntallv But Mr Cooper, I ha\ c ro doubt, did his. beet^ — and a man can't do more than that, can he 9 Little Nana, Couv.eau's k.d was represented by a i cry intelligent child actress, Miss Lily" de Becker. GenemUy speaking, the pioduetioii was not up to the Adelnhi mark. It ran a we^k. mainly due to Cbarks Warner's Coupeau. — Your-? tiulv.

JOHNXY MAC.