On and Off the Stage

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 20105, 11 May 1935, Page 16

On and Off the Stage

News about Plays and Players

The English principals of the J. C. Williamson, Limited, Gilbert and Sulli-

van Opera Company arrived in Australia from London on the Mongolia on April 29, and will immediately commence rehearsals in Melbourne for the season whic is expected to open on May 25. They include Ivan Menzies, principal comedian; Winifred Lawson, soprano; Evelyn Gardiner, contralto; Geoffrey Stirling, tenor; Gregory Stroud, baritone; and Richard Watson, basso. According to present arrangements, the opening production will be “The Gondoliers.”

Ivor Novello’s play “Fresh Fields,” being played through New Zealand by a J. C. Williamson Company, is described as a comedy of modes and manners created with the idea to amuse. Novello depicts a cultured British set living in a faded Belgravian mansion to which come a party of breezy Australians as paying guests.

The process of melting British reserve with Australian naturalness affords audiences some healthy laughter, because Novello has exaggerated both types to bring home his points. There is romance too, between the aristocratic son of Belgravia and the warmhearted daughter of the, Australian

tourists, while even one of the faded ladies has an affair with the bachelor uncle of the party from out yonder. “Fresh Fields” will certainly amuse New Zealand audiences, who will appreciate the subtlety of the author’s methods. Anthony Kimmins, who wrote “While Parents Sleep,” which is in the repertoire of the J. C. Williamson Company opening in Wellington on May 11 with “Fresh Fields,” is a naval officer who has resigned the service to dedicate himself to the stage. His first work “While Parents Sleep.” is comedydrama of the best type, making a plea for better understanding of youth by parents, or vice-versa, the dialogue being brilliantly emphatic and the situations at times tense, or merely amusing, as the case may be. Mr Kimmins is also an actor, and has appeared in several British films.

Dr. Karl Muck, w r ho lost his leadership of the Boston Symphony Orchestra by refusing to conduct “The Star Spangled Banner” on a programme during the world war, and who last year was deposed by the National Socialist Government from his place with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Hamburg, celebrated his 75th birthday on last October 22. in honour of which event the city of Hamburg has changed the name of the former Holstenplatz to Karl Muck Platz and the Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra has made him an honorary member and asked that he lead one of the concerts of this season.

The plays of Mr W. B. Yeats, with all their Irish mysticism comprise many notable contributions to modern drama and a signal service has been performed by their collection and presentation in one volume. All the plays have previously been published, but their appearance in collected form will undoubtedly be welcomed by students of the drama and particularly of the poetic drama, in which Mr Yeats is one of the artists of the age. His plays are not often acted professionally in this part of the world but for reading they have all the delight that flows so freely from a love of beauty matched by a beauty in words.

Although nothing definite has been arranged, there is a big prospect of a visit to New Zealand shortly of a J. C. Williamson Musical Comedy Company, playing “Gay Divorce” and “Nice Goings On,” both of which have been delighting Australian audiences. Abounding in singing, dancing and witty dialogue they will be interpreted by a first-class company. Both are remarkable for the dressing and mounting. “Nice Goings On” is set in an extravagant Scandinavian pleasure resort. “Gay Divorce” is the story of a professional co-respondent who falls in love with a client. Tuneful and haunting melodies, ballets, ludicrous situations and romance are found in “Gay Divorce” and “Nice Goings On”

Paris theatrical managers are making a valient attempt to induce their audiences to look smarter, and one of them has now offered to present a trinket to every male spectator who is wearing evening clothes. The gifts are to be claimed at the box-office after the first act. It may be noted that there is no suggestion of giving anything to the ladies, for they nearly always dress for the play already. In no country in the world is it more true than in France that a man is most comfortable in old clothes and a woman in new ones.

Miss Irene Vera Young in a letter to Sydney friends from Tokio reports that she has been studying the art of the traditional Japanese dance. A dance recital there, she says, can easily last for four hours. Quite half of this period is given up to intervals; yet no one in the audience becomes in the least restless cr impatient. “And to think,” says Miss Young, “how I nearly killed myself with hurry at my Sydney recitals, in order that the audience should not be kept waiting more than 60 seconds between one dance and the next! ”

“The Distaff Side,” which members of the Independent Theatre of Sydney recently presented was specially written for Dame Sybil Thorndike just after her Australian tour, and was the first play in which she appeared when she returned to London. At the end of last year, she played the part in New York. “The Distaff Side” is by John Van Druten. the accomplished author of “Youngly Woodly” and “London Wall.” He callstit a “comedy of women” —a description which rises from the fact that there are eight fully-developed parts for female play-

The next production at Bryant’s Playhouse of Sydney will be “The Mocking Bird,” a comedy by Philip Hale, who wrote the interesting Joan of Arc play, “She Passed Through Lorraine.” “The Mocking Bird” deals with the sudden irruption of an escaped convict into the household of a respectable English family and with the extraordinary secrets this event brings to light. There is a highly effective surprise at the final curtain. Miss Beryl Bryant says that public interest in Sydney in her productions seems to be on the increase; for she can now run each play for seven or eight weekly performances. Her one-act play competition closes on May 22.

Even though Sir Benjamine Fuller’s opera company has disbanded, several of its most important members will remain in Australia for a time. Mr Maurice de Abravanel, for example, appears to have signed a contract with Mr Ernest Rolls to conduct light musical plays in Melbourne. Mr de Abrovanel had booked his passage to London by the R.M.S. Orama when Mr Rolls approached him. He was unwilling to undertake music of the lighter sort unless he had some opportunity of directing a concert orchestra in works of larger dimensions as well. Negotiations to this end are now in progress. The details are as yet obscure; but the Musicians’ Union has been consulted, and a body of a hundred or so players is being aimed at. Mr Rolls has been encouraged to take these ambitious steps by the extraordinary success which has attended his revue “Rhapsodies of 1935.” The box plan is in a constant state of siege, and full houses greet every performance. When the season of this production closes Mr Rolls has in mind to present Franz Lehar’s “Land of Smiles ” in which Richard Tauber made a great hit in London two or three years ago, and possibly Johann Strauss’s “The Gipsy Baron.” He has already engaged Miss Thea Philips and Mr Octave Dua as two of the principal singers. A reply to a suggestion that the National Theatre movement in England should be abandoned in favour of the establishment merely of a repertory company to tour Great Britain and the Empire is made by Mr Sydney W. Carroll in a recent issue of the London •Daily Telegraph.” The National Theatre committee 4 as 110 intention and has never announced any intention of making a “vast expenditure” upon a building he says. The sum of £500,000 for which it is appealing provides for a sufficient sum to secure the endowment upon which most critics rightly insist. It is necessary to have a new theatre because no existing building m a central position is available at anything like a reasonable price which provides the necessary accommodation for a repertory programme produced upon a high-class and standard scale. No existing building can be offered to the movement fit to be classed as worthy of the ideals and standards of the dramatic art of this country and challenging comparison with the State theatres of European capitals. The members of the National Theatre Committee do not believe that they will fulfil their ideals simply by spending an extravagant sum upon a building. They have, indeed on their directorate people who are prominently and actively associated with the control of Stratford, the Old Vic. and Sadler’s Wells. Nothing that they have in contemplation means competition with any existing theatrical venture. A National Theatre with its constant change of programme must provide a unique forcing house for histrionic talent. Just as the “dressing” of a play is valuable to its proper effect, so the “housing” of a play may similarly affect its character and its fate. There is more in this “building” idea than some critics allow for. A lovely house makes for lovely work, assists the sensibilities of the actor, adds to the dignity of his calling and enhances the scenic values upon which Mr Gielgud lays such stress.