STAGE GOSSIP.

Otago Witness, Issue 3148, 15 July 1914, Page 60

STAGE GOSSIP.

Miss Muriel Starr, of the “Within the Lav/” Company, has been re-engaged by J. C. Williamson (Lid.) for 12 months. Charles B. Westmacott, who recently returned from Africa, where he had been in charge of the Oscar Asche-Lily Brayton tour, has joined Beaumont Smith and Louis Meyer. Miss Katherine Grey, the clever American actress round here some time ago, is said to be showing to great advantage in “The Rule of Three” at the Garrick Theatre, New York.

Mr Paul JJufault, the Canadian tenor, was to give at Melbourne three farewell concerts on July 8,9, and 10. These were to be the popular tenor’s final appearances in Melbourne, as he sails for Canada early this month.

Signor Caruso recently returned to Covent Garden, London, where he had an enthusiastic reception, which was shared by Miss Destinn and Madame Kirkby Lunn. Mr John M'Cormack has also made his reappearance in London. Mr George Edwardes arranged with Mr Joseph P. Bickerton, of New York, to bring to London his entire company in the musical comedy, ‘"Adele” Its first performance took place at tire Gaiety cn May 30, /’"After the Girl” having terminated that week. . " Potash and Perlmutter,” which is to be staged in Australia by J. C. Williamson (Ltd.), has passed its tenth month at the George M. Cohan Theatre, New fork. Another Williamson attraction, “ Seven Keys to Baldpate," has passed its three-hundredth night at the Gaiety Theatre, New York. Wallace Brownlow, who left Australia some years ago, after he had gained fame as a baritone singer in the Rickards circuit, and with the J. C. Williamson companies, is to appear at the Sydney Tivoli Theatre. He was one of the first engagements made by Mr Hugh D. MTntosh when the latter arrived in America recently. Dorothy Vane received a record number of floral tributes on the -opening night of the Gilbert and Sullivan Company in Melbourne. They totalled 36, and converted the stage into something like a spring garden, with every tree blooming. Miss Ruth Lincoln ran Miss Vane a close second, and between them the two artists took away with them about four cab-loads of flowers.

It would appear that we are not to see Wirths’ Circus in New Zealand again. Mr George Wirlh, in the course of a recent interview, says thaft the conditions here are incredible, and unless the Government gives more reasonable terms it will be impossible to include the Dominion in the circus itinerary. The trouble apparently is transportation charges, which the proprietor describes as highway robbery. Many of the best-known English novels are gradually being made the subject of picture plays, and the latest to be added to the list is Du Maurier’a famous story, *" Trilby,” the artist's model. It is at present being produced by the London Film Company of St. Margaret’s-on-Thames. Sir Herbert Tree appears as that extraordinary character, Svengali, the hypnotist, while the title role is played by Miss Yiva Berkett. An item of more than ordinary interest is the announcement that the Hugh Buckler and Violet Paget Little Theatre Company, Sydney, will commence its New Zealand tour at Auckland on August 24, under the direction of Beaumont Smith. During the first tour through the Dominion they will play Pinero’s delightful " House in Order,” Bernard Shaw’s famous "‘Fanny’s First Play,” Sheridan’s ever-new *' School for Scandal,” and other plays of esablished reputation. Aeronautics in an abstract sense play a most important part in the highly amusing plot and startling incidents of ’" The Glad Eye,” to be produced by the Beaumont Smith-Louis Meyer English Farce Comedy Company. Aeroplanes and aviators, real and imaginary, though never seen in action, contribute a large amount of wholesome gaiety and amusement to the play which created such a laughing record at the Strand Theatre, London, where it ran continuously for more than 400 nights. William E. Grant, who is in the title role of

Mr Wu,” the powerful Anglo-Oriental play, began life as a sailor, and in this respect ho resembles two other distinguished members of his profession—Kyrle Bellew and William Terriss. Both of these, like Mr Grant, held master's certificates, and were fine sailormen in their day, with the further resemblance that their training in the tough curriculum of the sea gave to them that sense of authority and vigour in their work that is characteristic in all of them.

Sir Thomas O’Shaugnessy (president of the Canadian Pacific Railway), Lieutenant-colonel Prank S. Meighen, Mir O. B. Gordon, Mr C. R. Hosmer, Mr Fred. O’Shaugnessy, and other influential men have placed ,their names at the head of a list of guarantors for the return of the Quinlan Opera Company to Canada in November. Among the novelties to be produced there are " The Love of the Three Kings,” “ Parsifal,” “Don Giovanni,” and the repetition of certain of the Wagnerian works. Edward Knoblauch, the industrious dramatist, who compiled “ Kismet,” has written a kinematograph drama, called “ My Lady’s Dress,” which, delivered in eight rapid scenes, gives something of the economic tragedy caused in the production of a modem woman’s frock. The heroine in the play sees as in a dream the sweating and starvation of the people who have made all the things used in her raiment, and at the end of the play is so startled by the revelation that she vows to get her husband to do something for the unfortunate toilers. In his struggling days Mr Graham Moffat used to appear on the entertainment platform in the winter, and in summer he was a photographer. Ho used to arrange character studies for picture post-card publishers. “ I would have to furnish the dresses for my ideas, and pay the models, and for suitable sets I would get very good pay. While the boom lasted it was nothing unusual to clear £3O or £4O a week. Mr Moffat found this to bo very useful when he came to work out his pictorial values for the stage. His characer grouping is admirable always in “ Bunty Pulls the Strings.” Mr William Watson, the clever and cultured reciter, is to pay a return visit to Dunedin, opening at the Bums Hall on July 22. In a sense Hugh D. M'lntosh did a cruel thing in bringing Ada Reeve to Australia (says the Theatre). As a character-singer and character-actress the effect of Miss Reeve’s visit must be to make every other actress seen

in Australia in anything: like the same class of work look so pitiably small. Miss Reeve is to vaudeville, musical-comedy, and pantomime performers what Mile. Genee was to vaudeville, musical-comedy, and pantomime balletdancers. Each is in a world that is serenely —and exclusively—her own " Bunty Pulls the Strings,” described as a remarkable little play,” with clean and wholesome comedy, has made a striking success at Sydney Theatre Royal, where it has been presented by E. J. Carroll, by arrangement with J. C. Williamson (Ltd.). The chief charm of the play is .said to be its strong touch of Nature, presented with a master hand. Through the comedy there pass a delightful gallery of Scottish country folk of Mid-Victorian period, with their crinolines and poke bonnets and Paisley shawls. It is three years since “ Bunty Pulls the Strings ” was played for the first time in London. During that time it has been played by 14 companies in England and America, and is as popular and successful as ever. Are modern melodramas, such as “ Within the Law,” “ The Argyle Case,” and Sealed Orders,” becoming too realistic in their minute exposition of the methods of burglars and “crooks” generally? The question is forced on one after reading a critique in a Melbourne journal of recent date. The writer is much impressed with the ultra-realism of the jewel robbery in the first act of ” Sealed Orders,” which thrilled playgoers when the play was staged m Melbourne a few weeks ago. “ Burg.ar outfits, like other stage effects, have advanced with the time,” remarks the critic. ” The robbery was quite a revelation to most of the audience in methods of burglary brought up to date, and possibly one or two took a professional interest in the feat!” The hypothesis is, after all, not a bit out of the way or unwarrantable. Surely, a London paper remarks, not for in', ny a long day has there been such a gathering of talent in a single play as there was in “ The Silver King,” which was played at Hia Majesty's recently in, aid ofi ting George’s pension fund, in the presence of the King and Queen. The names in the programme included those of Messrs H. 3. Irving, J. D. Beveridge, Herbert Waring, Norman M’Kinnel, Gerald du Maurier, Sir Herbert Tree, Weedon Grossmith, Alfred Bishop, Eric Lewis, C. M. Lowns, E. M. Robson G. P. Huntley, Charles Hawtrey, George Graves, Matheson Lang, Sir George Alexander, Seymour Hicks, and Harry Paulton, and Misses Lillah M'Carthy, Marie Lohr, Gladys Cooper, Ellia Jeffreys, and Carlolta Addis m. Mr John Beauchamp as Mr Parkyn, and Mr Murray Carson as the railway porter,appeared in their original roles. “ Those were good old days of Gilbert and Sullivan opera on tour,” said Albert Kavanagh, of the J. C. Williamson company at Melbourne Her Majesty’s, reflectively discussing his earlier years in the business. He added: “However, they don’t come up to the present time from the financial point of view, in spite of the halo that generally hovers around the days that are gone. I played Jack Point in 1 The Yeomen of the Guard’ at £3\LCs per week. But a promising .man was not kept in the chorus in those days. If he showed any talent he was soon put into parts, and had the opportunity of working hia way up to principals. The experience was invaluable, especially taking into account the fact that an artist who had done well in Gilbert and Sullivan could always secure an engagement without any trouble. It was a qualification that carried a lot of weight with it. For a man to have gone through a Gilbert and Sullivan repertoire with success was to open the door to engagement in any musical company.” Apropos of the performance of “ lolanthe ” at Melbourne Her Majesty’s by the J. C. Williamson Gilbert and Sullivan Company, Richard Weathersby, the producer, recalls an interesting fact in connection with the London production of this opera by D’Oyly Carte at the Savoy. “It may not be generally known,” said Mr Weathersby, that D’Oyly Carte was the first manager to introduce electric light into the theatre and to use it for stage purposes. This was in 1882. Previous to this there had been arc lamps outside; but the incandescent light had not come into use. Carte was very proud of the innovation, which aroused great interest, and between the oast of ‘ lolanthe ’ he would stand in front of the curtain with a lighted lamp in his hand and deliver a lecture on it, pointing out how it minimised the risk of fire in the theatre by doing away- with the paraffin lamps used in the footlights and elsewhere. He lit up all the fairies by electricity, each of them carrying a light in her hair throughout the whole of the opera.” A few years ago the original autograph manuscript of “ The School for Scandal ” was brought to auction in London at Sotheby’s. This rare relic was once, indeed, nearly destroyed by fire, for it was sent, to Fairburn, the binder, in 1834, by Sir George Chetwynd, the examiner’s grandson, and was there when the binder’s premises were destroyed by fire. Some of the 137 pages of manuscript show the marks of scorching; otherwise, in the Russia binding tooled with the Chetwynd arms, the document is complete. The suggestion which has been sometimes made that Sheridan was in such a huny that he actually wrote portions of the play during the first performance is disproved by the state of this manuscript, which shows the comedy complete. It is considered that it is the identical copy sent for license, and found with many other manuscript play's among William Chetwynd’s papers at his death in 1778. Moreover, it contains some of Sheridan’s alterations, notably the amalgamation of the character part of Miss Verjuice with that of Lady Sneerwell. The certificate of authenticity written by Sir George Chetwynd on September 10, 1834, contains the quaintly aloof statement: —“This is the identical copy of ‘ The School for Scandal,’ which was transmitted by a Mr Sheridan to my grandfather, William Chetwynd.”