On and Off the Stage

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 20065, 23 March 1935, Page 16

On and Off the Stage

"Of course, what I’d really like to do is a play in the West End,” is one of

the oldest lines handed out to sceptical reporters by returning English actors and actresses greeting England’s shores after varying degrees of success in the American theatres and cinemas. Sometimes it actually happens; more often not, Douglas Fairbanks, jun., Constance Cummings, and Laura la Plante are three who have come, said and done. When Clive Brook arrived in London recently after ten unbroken years of highly remunerative exile in California, he made the old familiar announcement. But he meant it. He had been looking for a play ever since, and now he has found one which really interests him. It is a new play by Clifford Bax about the Borgias, that colourful Italian family of the fifteenth century. Clive Brook’s last stage appearance was with Iris Hoey at the Ambassadors in 1923, -in a play called “Clothes and the Woman.” Three years before that, in another Iris Hoey play, there might have been seen a young actress, Mildren Evelyn by name. When she became Mrs Clive Brook one Saturday morning some 14 years ago, the event rated six lines in the local papers. Before the screen discovered him Brook could earn about £lO a week on the stage. It went up £IOO before he left Britain for Hollywood’s £6OO. He was not out of work for a single day all the time he was there. Clive

.Brook is extraordinarily modest. He remarked to his interviewer that from

the commercial point of view his appearance in a play now “might have the added meretricious attraction of his having been in the movies.” That, no doubt, is a distinct possibility.

Cyril Vernon has the opportunity of displaying his finished, polished acting in the role of Lord Farrington in

"Sweet Aloes,” the opening production of J. C. Williamson's New English Company at the Comedy Theatre, Melbourne. Mr Vernon was last in Australia and New Zealand about six years ago in "Rookery Nook,” “Cuckoo in the Nest” and “Thark.” He has played many important roles in comedies and farces in London and the provinces. On leaving Australia in 1929, he went back to Tom Walls’ management and played Sir Hector Benbow in "Thark’ ’and similar roles in other farce-comedies under Tom Walls’ regime. Mr Vernon says he enjoys being a comedian “because I generally get good opportunities, and particularly because the public no longer expects a comedian to be funny off the stage as well as on.”

The view that the establishment of a national theatre in London—as suggested in this week’s cable messagemight have a great effect upon the production of plays, although little upon the actual writing of them, was expressed by Professor J. Shelley of Christchurch, who stressed the need for a sufficiently experimental attitude to be maintained. The success or failure of such a project, he said, depended upon the freedom that could be given to the creative producers and artists in doing their work—too rigid official control was rather deadening to artistic progress. There is always a certain amount of danger in the subsidy of the arts because the plays or theatres which are subsidised or supported as national institutions tend to become stodgy and lacking in life,” said Professor Shelley; “but at the same time if the control of such a theatre is safeguarded by preventing too tight a hand upon it by officialism, then it can make possible the production of plays which might have a great effect upon the artistic development of the theatre, which could not possibly be produced under ordinary commercial conditions. It may have little effect upon the actual writing of plays, but it may have a great effect upon the production of them if it maintains a sufficiently experimental attitude; which means that a considerable amount of liberty would have to be allowed.

News about Plays and Players

Prior to leaving London for Australia Gabriel Toyne, who has returned tp Melbourne to produce ‘‘Sweet Aloes’* and other plays for J. C. Williamson, Limited, was associated with several important film productions, including Warner Brothers feature, “Murder in Monte Carlo,” in which he took an important role. In this film also appeared Errol Flinn, who came from Australia. A correspondent signing himself “Poor Tom” offers the following lines, under the title “Triolets of a Tasteless Tradition.” We sat in the pit, At “The Wind and the Rain,” Troubled more than a bit As we sat in the pit, That money and lack of it Could both be a bane. We sat in the pit, At “The Wind and the Rain.” We looked at the rows For the rich who were late, In their furs and their bows. We looked at the rows, By bad manners or pose, Still empty at eight. We looked at the rows Of the rich who were late. Three one-act plays which were awarded prizes in last year’s South Canterbury Drama League's playwriting play competition, will be presented by the Repertory Group of the Drama League in the Little Playhouse on Monday evening. The plays will be presented in the following order: “Glorious Failure,” by W. J. Parsons; “The Roundhill Block,” by Mrs R. L. Wigley; “Koea Koea Calls,” by Mrs E. R. Goulter. Active rehearsing has been carried out for some weeks, and the plays which will be produced by selected sections of the repertory group should provide an interesting programme. Moreover, the presentation of original plays will enable supporters of country-drama to decide how the placings of the judges compare when the work of the writers is produced on the stage.

Merton Hodge’s comedy, “The Wind and the Rain,” is a big success in Berlin. It has been adapted by Detlef Sierck, one of the best translators of English plays, and the piece had the distinction of reopening the Kammerspiele Theatre after it had been closed for months. One of the notices describes it as “a typical picture of student life wherever it may be, with charming and pleasing dialogue and a love story that is as old as time, but which is always fresh,” thus echoing the verdict of London. It is shortly to be done in Vienna. Private advice received in Auckland indicates that his second play, “Grief Goes Over,” is shortly to be put on the London stage, although his first is still enjoying as great a success as ever.

The New York theatre is an excellent host this season, for a fair proportion of the productions on Broadway are British. In several cases the entire casts are from England. One of the outstanding successes is the visit of the D’Oyley Carte company, which has been sold out at every performance. Noel Coward has two plays running in “Conversation Piece” and, by way of contrast, the tragic “Point Valaine,” in which Lynn Fontanne, Alfred Lunt and Osgood Perkins are playing. New York has applauded Sean O’Casey's “Within the Gates,” which failed at the Royalty, and the Irish players have attracted big audiences. The most popular piece in New York is “The Great Waltz,” which was staged by Sir Oswald Stoll at the Alhambra under the title of “Waltzes from Vienna.” It is taking 44,000 dollars a week, and Marie Burke plays her original part. Another actress who has made a personal hit is Sybil Thorndike in “The Distaff Side.”

At a special meeting of the National Theatre Committee in London last month, Lord Lytton announced that the committee had passed a resolution asking him to raise £500,000 for the establishment of a national theatre. Of this sum the committee already has £150,000 in hand. Lord Lytton recalled that in 1832 his grandfather, Bulwer-Lytton, the novelist, who was then a Whig member of Parliament, moved for a committee of inquiry into “the position of drama in this country,” and that by his efforts dramatic authors acquired powers of copyright, and the monopolistic right of Drury Lane and Covent Garden to perform plays in London was extended to other theatres. If these theatres had been compensated for the loss of their monopoly by State subsidy, as BulwerLytton suggested at the time, we should have had the beginnings of two national theatres. The public appeal for a national theatre had first been launched in 1908 at a meeting at the Lyceum Theatre. Twenty-seven years was a long time, but his grandfather had taken 23 years to achieve the abolition of the tax on newspapers, and the campaign for a national theatre had been hindered by the war and the economic depression. Lord Lytton appealed to the public to remove the reproach of being the one great country that had no national theatre. They hoped to do so this year. In 1908 they combined with another committee which hoped to put up a memorial theatre to Shakespeare on the tercentenary of his death in 1916, but that chance was missed. Now they felt they had another chance. Their work had gone on for just about the length of the King's reign. Let them get the national theatre established as the most fitting way of celebrating ms jubilee. They hoped to erect in the heart of theatreland a building which would embody all the latest experience of theatre construction and to set to work upon it as soon as a site had been fixed.