THE STAGE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3339, 13 March 1918, Page 46

THE STAGE.

_ Contributions from the Profession chronicling their movements and doings are invited. All communications to be addressed "Pasquin," Otago Witness Office.

PRINCESS THEATRE. Fuller*' Vaudeville Company BURST'S HALL. March 9 to 16.—Fisk Jubilee Singers. "Th» drama's laws th« drama's patrons give, And those who live to please must please to lire."

THEATRICAL AND MUSICAL NOTES.

By Pasquin. Tuesday, March 12. Mr T. Haverly, the head of the Revue Company who nightly attract large audiences to the Princess Theatre, hails from New York, and played all over the United States in his early days as a variety artist. One of hi 3 first big engagements wae with M'Kee Rankin, with whom he worked for two seasons. He then joined Fred Daniel's vaudeville show and toured the West Indies and South and Central America. After a tour of England, Scotland, and Ireland, he joined the Palace Theatre Stock Company, and starred in many parts. -—Mr Haverly then decided' to visit Australia, and before coming to Dunedin had just concluded a seven months' season in Sydney. He is a particularly quiet and unassuming individual off tho stage, but still is a real New Yorker. He is well pleased with Australia and New Zealand so far as he has exploited the Commonwealth and Dominion. A novelty was introduced the other evening at the performance of the pantomime "Aladdin at the King's Theatre, Melbourne. The Argus tells us that two kookaburras ("laughing jackasses'.'), trained by Mrs Captain Ellis, of the Coliseum. Ballarat, laughed heartily at the jokes of the principal comedians, Barry Lupino and Bert Bailey. In their business is a series of conundrums, and the answer to each of these was the signal for an outburst of mirth by the birds which 'the joke hardly deserved. From a point of vantage in a box with their trainer the birds saw the pantomime through, and laughed .in. appropriate places Mrs Ellis has been training the birds for three years. The Y.M.C.A. runs a theatre at the front in France. _ Referring to tho work, Cicely Hamilton, in the Daily Chronicle, says. "We are not merely actors; far from It, Wo do our own carpentering, we type our own programmes, we draw up out own advertisements, we make our own raids on our neighbours' rooms, and bear off their furniture for the stage. There is no hardand fast division of labour; the leading lady will wrestle with the mechanism of a tefractory curtain, while tho acting mana ger collects the properties and tho comedian knocks in nails." From the profits made from "Damaged Goods," which recently finished a run of 281 performances at St. Martin's Theatre London, £6OOO has bcen_ devoted to a crusade against venereal disease. Mr "Dick" Stewart has taken over the managership, for the J. C. Williamson firm, of Her Majesty's Theatre. Sydney. The Daily Telegraph says that Mr Stewart is the hero or a hundred dominion tours in the interest of " the firm," and, after tramping the four corners of the earth, relishes the opportunity of settling down. The recent marriage between Viscount Drumlanrig, son and lieir of the Marquess of Queensberry, and Miss Irene Richards adds another to the already long list of romances of the stage and peerage. A daughter of Mr H. W. Richards, a wealthy London mill-pwner, the new Viscountess, who is still in her teens, made her first success when she was only 12—as a mimic at the London Hippodrome. She then returned to Paris to resume her education, and wae there, trained in singing by Jean do Reszke. Her abilities attracted the attention of Mr Edward Laurillard, who gave her Miss Iria Hoey's part in " Mr Manhattan" during Miss Hoey's illness. Afterwards she played a leading part in " Theodore and Co." at the Gaiety Theatre until a few weeks ago. Viscount Drumlanrig, who only came of age at the beginning of tho year, is a lieutenant in the Black Watch, getting his commission from Sandhurst a few months after the war started. He has been on active service 'throughout the war, and was wounded last September; In the ordinary course of events he will become tenth Marquess of Queensberry, and the former Gaiety actress will be a marchioness. Sir James Barrio's latest success, " Dear Brutus," produced at the Theatre, London, is described as whimsical, delightful, humorous, witty, with undercurrents of profound truth, and a pervasive charm that make it something more than an entertaining comedy. Tho audience are introduced to the country house of a queer, hospitablo old fellow, Lob, who has brought together a company of guests for tho week that includes Midsummer Eve Lob's idea, based on a tradition of the Countryside, is that those who go out on that night may find themselves in a magic

wood where thoy may have a " second chance" in life, though he does not tell this secret to his guests. So Mr Purdie, who in, real life is philandering foolishly with an unmarried girl, Joanna Trout, in the , woods finds himself married to her — and makes lovo to his own wife. Mr Dearth, the childless artist, who has got out of touch with his wife and is going to pieces, finds himself with a young daughter who is the joy of his life—and befriends generously his unknown real wife, who has taken the " might-have-been " of a wealthy, unprincipled lover. The scene between father and daughter is charming. And with the other people in the play the " second chance" finds them inve'terately showing the same character as in the first; the dishonest butler, for instance, becoming a prosperous but unscrupulous company promoter. The final act, where the peopio "come round" after their enchantment, is full of the deft touches in which Barrie is a master. The play, from beginning to end, is a delight for its literary grace, its charm, its inventive humour and fun. Lady Benson—better known perhaps as Mrs F. R. Benson—is direc'toress of a canteen at the French front under the French Red Cross. She has contributed to the Windsor Magazine some particulars of the work which is being carried on. With a staff of workers headed by her husband, Sir Frank Benson, the French poilus are catered for at the Cantine des Dames Anglaisc. It will interest play-goers to know that these* exponents of Shakespearean characters have won the hearts of the French soldiers, who have great faith in 'their healing powers. Lady Benson tells of one poilu who in a bitterly cold .night arrived at the canteen and petitioned to have a finger bound up. Lady Benson first gave him some coffee and a cigarette,. and when examining the finger before binding it up was surprised at the slightness of the hurt. Evidently reading her thoughts, the poilu said: " There is little the matter with my finger, madamo, but I had cafaxd, and I thought, if this lady will sneak to me, I shall be better and take courage, and so I told you I was suffering. I was in a hospital last year, and an English lady nursed me. .In England the men are so strong and the- women so gentle." PRINCESS THEATRE. The first half of the new programme presented at the Princess Theatre on the 11th was made up, as usual, by straight-out vaudeville turns, and each of the performers was heartily applauded b-" the audience. The Tossing Teetros, jugglers and hat spinners, were responsible for a sensational act—at least the male member of the duo did. He juggled with all the usual paraphernalia of "his particular art, and wound up by a demonstration of great physical strength, a fairly substantial-look-ing single-seated phaeton being raised- on end, as it were, and balanced on the performer's forehead by the point of- one shaft. Ernest Pitcher's comic stories and general deportment highly amused the saudience. A clever musical turn was presented by Jones and Raines. Both performers play the piano in good style. Bluffo, who makes a descent to the stage from the flies in a weird-looking aeroplane, provided a most amusing burlesque juggling turn, in which a fiercelooking "bulldog' and a "heavy" piece of ordnance play a not unimportant part. The remaining vaudeville item was given by vaude and Verne, song and patter artists, who received a double encore. The title of the new piece presented" by Haverly's Irish Revue Players was entitled " Muldoon's Picnic." The picnic, however, was mostly left to look after itself, what time Mr Haverly (Denis Mulcahy), Mr J. P. O'Neill (Michael Muldoon), Billy Maloney (Tim O'Brien), and Mr Brookes (CharJie Lovelace) carried on with the funmaking to the huge diversion of the audience The beautifuHy-dressedchorus girls, by their singing and dancing and all-round sprightliness and dash, helped to carry the revue along in animated fashion, and once more demonstrated what a very valuable asset they are in Mr Haverly's productions. FISK JUBILEE SINGERS. The fact that a programme of 20 items becomes doubled, owing to persistent rede mands from an audience, is sufficient proof that the programme has been enjoyed. Such was the experience at the Burns Hall _on Saturday night, when the Fisk Jubilee Singers gave their opening concert. The singers have visited Dunedin on several occasions, but some years have elapsed since they were last heard here. Apparently three of the original members remain—or if not original members at the least old members—and these are Misses Belle F. Gibbons, Bertha "Millar, and Professor C. A. White. It was made quite obvious on Saturday that the two ladies were regarded as old friendte by a fairly big section of the audience that completely filled Burns Hall. The professor to some extent escaped notice, as he occupies the retired, but extremely important position of accompanist, and is musical director generally. The other members of the company, as far as memory serves, are new to Dunedin. These consist of- Miss Leila Wyburd (soprano). Miss Clare. Solly (contralto), Messrs Sid Hayncs, Les Belcher (tenors), Marshall Palmer, and Harold Wilson (basses). It is of course in the jubilee chorus singing that the company is pre-eminently good. It is to be presumed 1 that all the individual members of the company do not pose as star solo vocalists, though everyone contributes solo items. They are. however, all quite capable of successfully entertaining singlehanded, and some really good solo voices are heard. But it is in the chorus work, and the part-singing genorallv, that the Jubilee Singers shine brilliantly. _ In all they gave about a dozen such items—increased to twice that number through recalls—and it is somewhat difficulty to select one as being better or more effectively rendered than another. Some were better received than others, but that was merely because they hit the taste of the audience, and not because there was any greater merit about the way they were sung.