A THRILL EVERY MINUTE.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10574, 27 January 1906, Page 1 (Supplement)

A THRILL EVERY MINUTE.

Oift^ THE MODERN THEATRE-GOER'S

DEMANDS.

"How much will it cq3t?" was the question the theatrical manager asked ten years ago when a new oonuc opeaa was ottered to him for presentation.

The same question (says the Weekly Scotsman) is asked to-day, but _ the answer wliich the manager wants is different. In the old days, what he meant was how little would it cost. The essentials for the making of a Roman holiday on the stage have Changed since the old days when people were easily pleased. The manager feels that he must have "a thrill every minute," if he is to make his show a success. In liis demre to accomplish this object, he has become wiling to spend money lavishly for single features that can entertain though only for a moment.

"Pasteboard crowns" will no longer do. AH details nowadays must be of the most costly kind. Dresses provided at an extravagant figure are provided for scenes lastting only a minute or two; they are then put off, and others, cquaUy lavish, take their places. But it. is m "thrill makers," "special effeots," • "bizaa-re features," that the modern manager isponds money with a specially lavish hand, although each is momentary m its possibilities as entertainment. In "The Earl and the Girl," for instanco, there is the encore of the song "Mediterranean Blue." ' The stage is darkened, a parachute of fluffy material is lowered over the centre of the stage and opened out. Countless different colored electric lights marks the ribs. The girls of tho chorus catch hold of streameat, depending from it and skip through a variation of the maypolo dance. At the same time chimes ring out beneath seats m different parts of the theatre. This feature is said to have cost £250. It included the installation of a special switchboard, the laying of hundreds of yards of electric wire, and the purchase of seventy chime bells to bo fastened under tho seats — all, ull ' for a minute's entertainment.

The "surprise" at the end of the first act intended to serve as an encore cost £240. This money was spent simply to secure a novel background for tho chorus. The chorus is suoig through holes cut m a special curtain. Each of the score or more oval openings is covered by an independent door. One by one they ure dropped, and iho faces of the singers are revealed, framed, and suggesting miniature portraits. One wonders why this feature' should cost so much, but when one learns that the curtain and staging for the support of the singers weighs more than half a ton, that it was necessary to pint m special hydraulic machinery to raise and lower it, and that each of the oval frames is surrounded, by electric lights behind the curtain, he understands.

_!_Chere. must Be no arid spots m an entertainment m theso exacting days. -From the point of view of some managers there is no sum too great to tspend m order to turn such spots into spnngs of joy. "But it doesn't pay," said a theatrical man the other day. "The- managers have defeated their own object. ' Tliey can't spend any moro money, for they are writing cheques for all that can possibly be ixpent: ' Even ' if they could, they have reached the line beyond whioh it would not be profitable to go. A show with costly features which would have made a sensation liad it been produced' ten years ugo, and would liave been' remembered for years, hardly attracts any attention now."

A mau can make a Garden In a month dr so, tliey say, But an old hen can unmake it In about half a day,