THE GHOST WALK

Otago Witness, Issue 2757, 16 January 1907, Page 68

THE GHOST WALK

The Savieri Dramatic Company were at, l«t«st playing in Otautau.

The Taylor-Carrington Company are at present appearing at the Lawrence Town Hall.

Mr Ernest Fitts is appearing 1 as a demon in Mr Williamson's pantomime "Mother Goose "

Mr J. Mac Donald, late of the Black Family, is now touring manager for Cook's Biograph Pictures.

At Eastertime Miss Tittell Brune returns to Melbourne, the initial production being "Parsifil "

George Edwardes pays £10,000 per week in salaries and fees among his numerous musical comedy companies.

Mr Reuben Fax, who was the Svengali of the first Australian production of "Trilby." is appearing in New York in Zangwill's p!ay "Nurse Marjorie."

Miss Emily Soldene's benefit in London recently resulted in £800 for seats and £150 made up of the sale of flowers, photographs, programmes, and the like. Miss Rose Musgrove has been engaged by Mr Robert Courtneidge to tour the English provinces in a new piece, "The Dairymaids," which has been veiy su<xes c fu'. Mr Charles Carter, the New Zealand tenor, is winning high honours in the name part of Gounod's "Faust" with the Moody-Manners O]>era Company in the English provinces Twenty-three boxes were sold at the Manhattan Opera House, New York, at the rate of 4000dol for each box for the season This n'akea an income of 90,000d0l from a portion of the boxes.

The pantcmiine of "Mother Goose," which formed Mr Williamson's Christmas and New Year bill in Melbourne, is making a successful bid for popularity. A second edition of songs aD(I specialties has been introduced Mr Willie Edouin. Hie only prominent London comedian, whose professional debut (as the youngest member of the once-famous Edouin Family* was made on the Australian boards in the early fifties, left recently for Amerii a

A critic in a Manchester paper pays — "Musical comedies are called musical comcflies on the gmnea-pig system; for just as a guineapig is neither a pig nor is it worth a guinea, so is a musical comedy neither musical nor comedic ''

Mis? May Chevalier, who was in Australia some yeais back as a member of Mr J. C. Williamson's dramatic company, is in the cast of Mr H A. Vac-hell's new comedy. "Her tjon," which has just been successfully produced in Glasgow. The Steele-Payne Bellringers were showing at the Thames last week The company is now made up — Mr and Mrs Steele (Miss Lizzie Payne), Miss Kate Maher, Miss Alice Appleby, Mr James Williams. Mr Elston Widburn. and Miss Lorraine TanMey.

Miss May Stuart, a daughter of Mr Leslie Stuart, the composer, has made her debut on the concert platform at the Stoinway Hall, London She is tall and prepo="e=<-ing, and a<; she sang with great charm and with a sense of the value of the words as well as of the music, she made a distinct succe-s.

"Sir Anthony." the new play by Mr Haddon Chambers, has just been produced in New York by that fine actor and great Australian favourite, Mr Charles Cartwright. A theatrical cable credits a decided success to the new piece, which deals with well-known phases of English siiburban "society," and is said to be most wittily written. Mr Wallace" Biownlow bag piafle a hit m

the United States- in the opera- "Madame Butterfly" ; Miss Hilda Spong is "starring" in '"John Hudson's Wife," and Mr Tyrone Power, with his wife (Miss Edith Crane), h«a created a good impression in "The Plainsman," the rights of which have been acquired by Mr Williamson. America continues to give a warm-heartecl welcome to English artists. Miss Olga Nethersole, sailed from London for New York with her company recently; Mr Forbes Robertson is touring in America with Miss Gertrude Elliott; Mr H. B. Irving and Miss Dorothea Baird are also in the States, as are Mr B. S, Willard, Miss Lena Ash Well, Mr Kyrle Bellew, and Mr Ben Greet.

According to a London paper. Miss Geraldine Farrar the singer who made such a sensation at Monte Carlo last season, has certainly- been very lucky during her short career (for she was born at Boston only in 1882), seeing that during her forthcoming engagement in America, where she is to give a series of 50 performances, the remuneration for her services has been fixed at £250 for each representation.

On the termination of the Wellington season of Mi J. C. Williamson's Roy*l Comio Opera Company, the following tour >wiU be undertaken : — Masterton, January 18 ; Palmerston North, January 19 and 21; Wanganui," January 22 and 23; New Plymouth, January 24; Auckland, January 25 to February 16 ;{ Ohristchurch, February 19 to March. s;j Timaru, March 6; Dunedin, March, 7 to 22; Invercargill, March 23. It is on the cards that the spring 1 production at Drury Lane, London, may be one in which Australians will be interested by old associations. Mr Luscombe Searelle is at present in treaty with Mr Arthur Collins for the staging there of "Mizpah," which has been bo exceedingly successful in America. The lyric* are by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, and Mr SearelleV music ia described ac being in the highest degree worthy the Biblical subject which has inspired it.

Nothing in the modern English theatre (ssya London Evening Standard) is more dangerous than the excessive development of gorgeous stage scenery and costumes. Beginning in the melodrama, houses, where real lamp-posts and Teal fire-engines are used to bolster up shoddy expressions of sham emotions by sawdust puppets, it has now become the fashion to demand fox every play an elaboration of ornament that is both unnecessary and ineffective.

The announcement of Madame Oalve's im< mediate retirement from the lyrio Btage ia evidently not correct, as Mr Isidore de Lax*, who is at present in London, has just received a telegram from the diva, sent from he* Chateau de Cabriere, asking him to send/ immediately her part in his new opera "Nadl." Madame Calve is under contract lo creat« the name part at the Opera Comique in April. Th« character of Nail— a courtesan of th« Sahara Desert — was suggested by the singer. In the matter of striking titles, a London author of melodrama has outdone his rival'i effort of "The Worst Woman in London '" bj making another called "The Ugliest Woman) on Earth." At a receait sitting of the Southwark County Court, a hatter who had permitted a woman, said to fit the description, to sit in his window to advertise ihe play recovered £12 from the owner of the Elephant and Castle Theatre for the hire of portion ol his premises. The termination of the run of "A Mid lsummer Night's Dream," a* the Adelphi Theatre, London, will close the long- engagement of Mr Oscar Asche and his wife, Miss Lily Brayton, «t that theatre. They will then tour the provinces, and later on will > visit* Australia. Miss Brayton has achieved a high place in the English dramatic world as an exponent of Shakespearian and romantic characters ; whilst Mr Asche, who w«s born inr' Geelong 34 years ago, and educated at tbe Melbourne Grammar School, has steadily advanced in Shakespearian and the higher drama, until he is now regarded as one ot the leading actors in London.

The so-called "charity" carnival, in which 99 per cent, of the receipts are absorbed in expenses, was one of the blots of Austr*li» a few yeoxa ago, until public opinion all but knocked it out of existence (says the Australasian). A similar condition of affairs seems to have been in progress in Engl«n<l for some time, and at present a big agitations ia being conducted to suppress tb« scandal. In London the carnivals reach euch immense dimensions that the position is even more serious than it was here. In one recent fete 900 tickets were sold at a guinea, aparb altogether from the casual custom obtained from the money received at th« doors and the stalls. Yet the charity in whose interest the fete was held received a cheque for only JEISO.