Will Not Retire

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 520, 24 November 1928, Page 24

Will Not Retire

Irene Vanbrugh Says the Stage is Her Life BOUCICAULT WILL NOT ACT AFTER AUSTRALIAN TOUR Irene Vanbrugh has no intention of leaving the stage. A published statement that this distinguished actress proposed to retire at the end of her Australian engagement caused no little surprise. The news that she will not, will be received with pleasure even greater than that surprise.” “I really could not retire,” confessed Miss Vanbrugh. “There is no one who is such a hard critic of my work as I am. I know when a part does not suit me, and when it is time to abandon one. While there is a role that I feql I can play, I do not think that I will ever say I shall retire and not play it. That is only natural, for the stage is more my life than are ordinary affairs.” The Vanbrugh-Boucicault Company is at present in Sydney, and, after a visit to New Zealand, will return to Melbourne in March for a farewell season.

Mr. Boucicault does not intend to act again after the Australian season. He will devote all of his time to production. It is possible that he may return 'to Australia and stage another cycle of Barrie plays. Miss Vanbrugh will have new roles when she appears again in England. “When I get back to England, I shall take a rest,” said Miss Vanbrugh. “Then, if I get a role I want to do, I shall do it, if I can. But a rest will be the first consideration. Miss Vanbrugh is still as fond of the stage as when she obtained her first professional engagement with J. L. Toole, at a salary of £1 a week. And what is it that makes her such a great artist? “Nothing escapes her, nothing is beneath her notice,” wrote the critic of the London “Daily Telegraph.” “\Vhen Irene Vanbrugh is on the stage, she is acting. She may not be speaking, she may not be moving about or facing the audience. She may be even sitting on a chair, as f have seen her, right away up stage, turned from the other performers, apparently gazing into a fire, almost unseen by the audience. Yet she is acting—acting intensely, acting naturally; never struggling for effect, never revealing the machinery of her art.”