PREPARING FOR LA MERI

Southland Times, Issue 22969, 15 August 1936, Page 5

PREPARING FOR LA MERI

TRANSFORMATION OF A STAGE FEVERISH ACTIVITY IN THEATRE The performance of La Meri began last evening at 9.15. Preparations for it began within a few minutes of La Meri’s party arriving from Dunedin by the early train yesterday afternoon. The hectic and feverish work of all the afternoon to provide a suitable background for the artistry of La Meri provided a reporter of The Southland Times with an intensely interesting 15 minutes watching a desolate stage transformed. Panels of scenery that were to form an attractive background in the evening lay face downward on the stage, wooden frames were hammered noisily and sawn to minute directions, flowing draperies were fitted to them, and gradually the stage began to look like a stage, and not a bare and dusty collection of old timber. The presiding genius was Mr Guido Carrera:, manager of La Meri. First he gave directions, and then with time pressing and much to be done, he donned blue overalls and was the most workmanlike workman of them all. Under his commands, some of them in a tongue that seemed—the reporter being no linguist—like Spanish, things happened all the afternoon with startling rapidity. Machinery for lighting effects, with the coloured slides that were to make the stage a thing of beauty for the performance looking garish and unreal in daylight, was being put together, the piano was being tried (after much preliminary search for the key of it), the theatre seats were being cleaned, and workmen were carrying out from the rear of the stage what seemed the remains of ringside seats for boxing. Ghosts of Old Shows. And silently watching, possibly with sympathy, the hurry and bustle of preparation were the- ghosts of shows long played and now forgotten. For the walls at the rear of the Civic Theatre stage are plastered with posters, some peeling off and tattered and others still seeming new, representing hundreds of nights of varied entertainment for Invercargill in the years gone by—“Odiva and Her Seals,” “The Royal Togos,” and very dramatically shown in lithographic representation, the stirring melodrama “Her Love Against the World.” Fresh from the Lyceum Theatre, Melbourne, said the poster, came “Her Love Against the World,” ' with the only memory of it now a torn and faded poster against a brick wall. “Old Folks at Home” and “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” too, were represented, with posters full of the sentimental appeal of Little Eva and hate of the bold bad Simon Legree. Then, for the gayer-minded, the American Burlesque Company altered the latest—perhaps 20 years ago the latest—in clever and daring attraction. A huge poster - drew attention to the rhythm and life of “Th. Merry Widow,” featuring the latest and most modern waltz tunes, and the Pollard Company was represented with “Manola,” “Rip Van Winkle,” and the stirring mystery story “The Black Cloaks.”

Theatregoers over many years would find a visit backstage at the Civic Theatre interesting at any time. But yesterday with the ghosts of old shows still lingering to watch the new show being prepared provided an interesting contrast —the sort of contrast that always gives backstage activity an exciting interest. Hard Day’s Work. All the afternoon the stage was got ready. “No tea for me to-night,” said Mr Carreras when a reporter asked if he could see him before dinner at his hotel. There was this to be done, that to be watched carefully, and a hundred and one details that wanted personal attention. And so it went on with each hour making the stage a nearer approach to the final perfection that was wanted. But those who saw the show last night thought only of the performance. The work of stage-hands and scene-shifters was to them an essential adjunct, but one to be taken for granted. But it was a hard day’s work that finally left the stage and effects as ready for use as they were when the curtain rang up at 9.15.