FORTY YEARS ON THE AUSTRALIAN STAGE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7264, 9 September 1891, Page 2

FORTY YEARS ON THE AUSTRALIAN STAGE.

Some of Mr J. R. Greville's Reminiscences. Mr J. R. Grevillo, the veteran and popular actor, who was in Christchurch as manager of Mr J. C. Williamson's Juvenile Opera Company, in a conversation with one of our staff, gave some reminiscences of his long career on the Colonial stage which will, doubtless, interest many of our readers. •' It was in 1852," said Mr Greville, " that I made my first appearance at a Colonial theatre. It wasn't my first appearance on any stage, however, for that came off the year before at the Royal Phoenix Amateur Theatre in Dublin, where, on May 13, I played Rochester in the comedy Charles the Second. I came out to Australia, like many other young fellows, to " better myself." I applied for employment at the old Queen's Theatre, which is now a carriage factory, in Melbourne, and sang one night at a concert under the direction of old Megson. Salaries were very small, however, snd so I went to the diggings. I digged with various success — I wasn't used to much digging, snd was a long lanky hobbledehoy then. I soon thought I had better try the stage again. THE DBA.UA. ON THE DIGGINGS. I joined a Company at Bendigo. Most of the members of the Company had left the Queen's Theatre, which Charles Young and J. P. Hydes, whom you in Chrutchurch must remember very well, were managing. Salaries were very much better on the diggings than in Melbourne. At the Queen's Shearcroft, our leading man, and a very clever actor, got about £4 a week. At Bendigo the lowest salary paid in the company was £10 a week. We charged ten shillings for admission to the front seats, though, and five shillings for the back seats. There was no pit or circle. The stage wasn't large, about as big as a billiard table, I should think, and we were put to some qu&r shifts for properties. I remember that we made a bed, for Desdemona to be smothered on, out of a couple of porter cases. After a very good time at Bendigo I went to Maryborough, where I very nearly got locked up for lampooning the i authorities. It was just about the i time of the Ballarat riots, and the police i were fearfully suspicious. I wrote a little I ekit, introducing the Commissioner, who came on the stage followed by a trooper on a basket-work hobby-horse, a wonderful piece of stage mechanism that same horse was thought to be by some of the audience. I was taken to the police camp, along with vaj little production. I managed to satisfy the authorities that there was nothing treasonable about it, and was allowed to perform it. Then I managed the theatre at Creswick's Creek, where I played with Tom Barry, the great clown, and Mrs and Miss Hanmer, the Amerioan stars. After the riots I went to Ballarat, and took the management of a concert hall, the Royal Mail. I brought out little dramatic pieces there with so much success that I got the management of the first properly constructed theatre built in Ballarat, the Montezuma. We had some talent there, I can tell you. G. V. Brooke appeared there. Coppin had brought him out, and during the pantomime season in Melbourne, when he wasn't wanted, he came up to play et Ballarat. Then we had Fanny Cathcart, one of the greatest actresses and most lovable women on the stage in Australia, and Robert Heir, who married her. You must have known them both : they played through New Zealand, and poor Heir died on the steamer just as he was coming to the Bluff. In Brooke's second week at the Montezuma Coppin went up to support him. Mary Provoat, whose performance of Camille is said by old hands to be equal to Bernhardt's, acted there. There, also, Julia Matthews played— one of the finest burlesque actresses tho Colonies ever caw, one of the finest in the world. She was married in Dunedin, slipped away to church during a rehearsal, as I suppose you know, and died, poor girl, in America. Miss Goddard was leading star lady. She had played at Sadler's Wells with Phelps, and was a fine tragic actress. I have not, however, time to tell you of all the well-known old hands who played at the Montezuma. I left it for the Charlie Napier Theatre, the only building in Ballarat, or on all the diggings for the matter of that, lighted with gaß. I had to finish my performance there every night at ten to allow the floor to be cleared for dancing. I noticed a curious thing about the receipts : if we took £100 at the doors —and we often did— the proprietor took another £100 at his bars for drinks at a Bhilling a nobbier. There we played, the first Opera Company on the diggings, with Signor and Signora Bianchi and Coulon. It was there I met the first child actress introduced to the Colonies, Annie Maria Quinn, a perfect mine of talent. Dominick Murray, the Irish comedian, and his wife, Josephine Fiddes, played at the Charlie Napier. There is a funny story about their marriage. He was playing at the " Iron Pot," tho Olympic, I think, and she was playing at the Royal. They gob married on the quiet, and ran away from their engagements. Both theatres had to be shut up that night, I heard. AT CBKMOENB. " I suppose you would rather hear me talk about the old actors I have met than about myself. I may as well say, however, that I left the diggings for Melbourne and managed Cremorne for Coppin. Julia Matthewa was leading burlesque actress there, and we had the Edouin family. We had Coppin and Billy Hoßkins playing together The Overland Route. I think it was there I first met Rogers, one of the cleverest and most versatile actors ever seen in the Colonies, equally at home in drama, high comedy, farce, or burlesque. AT THH PRINCISB*. " How these recollections are running away with me, to be sure. I had been to Adelaide and Geelong before I went to Cremorne, and in 1858 1 had re-opened the Princess Theatre in Melbourne. The acting manager waß Alexander Henderson, who afterwards went Home, married Miss Lydia Thompson, and died not long ago, after having made a name for himself in London as the introducer of the present Btyle of spectacular burlesque and opera comique. In the Company were the Nelson sisters, Carry, Marie, and Sara— Carry was through New Zealand not long ago, and I played with her in Auckland. Then there was Ned Holloway, " the T. P. Cook of the Colonies." now with Alfred Dampieratthe Alexandra. Poor John Musgrave, who lived in Chriatchurch for some time, and died not long ago in Melbourne Hospital, was in the Company, too. JOB JBFFBKSON. " After leaving Cremorne, I managed the Haymarkot, and then I joined Barry Sullivan at the old Royal. But lam talking too much about myself, and not enough about other people. I have met nearly every actor or actress of note who nae been to the Colonies for the last forty years, and which Bhall I talk about first ? Joe Jefferson f One of the most unassuming gentlemen, best-tempered men, and finest actors in the world ; a most upright, honourable and kind-hearted man. I took him to Tasmania and Adelaide. I played Dundreary to his Aea Trenchard, but that's by the way. I'll tell you a little anecdote which illustrates his character. I took him to Tasmania for a second season, and you know second seasons are not alwayß as successful, from a financial point of view, as first ones. This wasn't, and near the dose Jefferaon came to the office and Baid, 'Greville, get out the books.' I did so, thinking something was wrong. He then Baid ' Put down the weeks on which we haveloat.' I did so, and asked, 'Shall I put down those on whioh we gained to set against themP' 'No,' he said, 'you needn't do that. I'll bear half of those 10886f1,' and he wrote a oheque for the J amount. Not only that, but he played for [ three mghte in Launeeaton for nothing for I me. He wm the only man I ever met in ft |

ong experience who acted towards hie manager like that. OM> FBIENDB. "Another actor well known in these Colonies at one time was Sir William Don, the comedian, who has been lying in the Hobarton Cemetery nigh on thirty years. He was one of the tallest men I ever aaw on the stage— stood 6ft 7in or thereabouts. He came out to Melbourne when we were playing our Cremorne season. One of bis favourite tricks on the sta^e was to walk up to a chair and etep over it, as if be didn't pee it. I well remember Walter Montgomery, too, coming out to Harwood and Co. at the Royal, in Melbourne, where he electrified the people with bia Hamlet, d la Feohter — the blonde-haired, fair Danish-coin Hamlet. He was the greatest elocutioniot I ever heard in my life. Single-handed he used to keep an audience in breathless attention during a two hours' entertainment. At the Boyal he played with Miss Cleveland, whose Leah made a great sensation. Now she is Mrs Arthur Stirling, well known in London. At Adelaide I played with the Howson family. John, the son, is now one of tbe principal musical conductor in New lork. His uncle had been leading tenor in the first Opera Company in Sydney, of which i Sarah Flower was the contralto. That was away in the forties. Poor Hattie Shepherd ! was with ub then, and Eleanor Carey, since I then a leading lady in America, was playing small parts in the Company. I bad ' almost forgotten to mention Mr and Mrs I Jamet) Stark, whom I know in the early j days. He was one of the best Kichelieus, in the Macready version, I ever saw. He I had played Brooke's characters at the j Queen's before Brooke came out. In Geelong I played with John Drew, the Irish comedian, whose Handy Andy and the Irish Emigrant will never be forgotten in Australia t and the Misses Gougenheim, Joey, whom you have seen here, and Adelaide, the first capital in high comedy, the other good in supporting her. Both are married now, and Joey ib in Sydney. Billy Heffornan, the great introducer of talent, at Sandhurst, one of the liveliest old fellowß I ever knew, was j another very old friend of mine. Ho died, you remember, at hie hotel in Dunedin, not long ago. Billy speculated in hotels and theatres at Sandhurst, building his own. He began with a oonoert hall— the Shamrock— in which he introduced the Carandini family, Walter Sherwin, 'the inimitable' Thatcher, Miska Hauea the violinist, whose imitation of tbe bird on the tree made a wonderful sensation. Admission was free, but Billy charged double price for ' refreshments/ and kept the place thoroughly respectable. He turned it into a theatre afterwards, and I managed it for him. I must not forget to mention Charles Dillon, the great Belphegor. I was stage manager for Coppin, whon he opened with the Zavietoweki sisters at the old Boyal in Melbourne. That theatre was burned down not so very long after, while we were doing the fire scene in Streets of London, a scene which is responsible for a good many theatre fireß. I was stage manager and lessee of the new Boyal, with Coppin, Hennings, Stewart and Harwood, and during our season there George Eignold made his tremendous hit with Henry V. But I am getting down to recent times and had better stop. The people who will read what you are going to put in will know as muoh about what happened in the theatrical way out here since as 1 could tell them.'^