THE PLAY AND THE PLAYERS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6065, 31 December 1897, Page 1

THE PLAY AND THE PLAYERS.

•> fEt Prompter in " Canterbury Times."] The Greenwood Family is touring the North Island with an operatic burlesque, A Cup of Cold Poison, described as a clever and amusing skit on Romeo and Juliet. Excellent progress is being made with the erection of a new theatre in Masterton. The building, which will cost about i£4ooo, is in brick, and will hol<J 1000 people. Mr Bland Holt has been asked to open it with one of his productions. The Auckland correspondent of this paper wires -.—The Bland Holt Company opens at the Opera House on Boxing night in For England. Mr Bland Holt had a great season when last he visited us, and I have little doubt that he will again enjoy large houses. Mr Wi Duncan, the well-known footballer, who has been engaged by Messrs Williamson and Musgrove to superintend the production of somo Maori scenes in an opera about to be staged by the Firm, will leave for Australia in February. He takes with him three Maoris from Hastings. Mr Ernest Fitts will play the part of Djin Djin in Mr Pollard's production of the pantomime of this name in New Zealand. Mr Fitts played J the character in 'the original production in Australia. Mr John Wallace, who stage-managed the original for Messrs Williamson and Musgrove, has come to New Zealand to superintend its performance here. • At the close of Mr Bland Holt's Wellington season, on Dee. 15, the audience took a demonstrative farewell of the company. Mrs Holt was loaded with bouquets, the curtain was called up upon the whole company after the final act, and descended amid cheering, and the massed bands playing " Say All Eevoir, but not Good-bye." The season has been exceptionally successful. Miss Juliet Wray (says a Melbourne contemporary of recent date) severs her engagement with The Gay Parisicnnc Company in three weeks' time, leaving Melbourne to catch the Alameda at Sydney, and so proceeds to Auckland to join her husband, Dr Sharman. It is understood that Miss Wray has definitely made up her mind to leave the stage — for good and all. Interesting letter received by an Australian manager, and published by Melbourne Punch-.— "Dear Mr ,— I want to appear at your theatre. lam a born actress and a blonde. My eyes are black and so are my eyelashes, and my limbs are the most beautiful I have ever seen. I wouldn't mind starting as 'boy' in the pantomime. I don't know whether I sing or dance best, but I will be an enormous success. I would come" for i>2o a week at first. Let me know by return of post, as I want to settle my engagement before Christmas. — Yours very sincerely, Flo. Mr Charles Berkeley, the well-known comedian, who visited New Zealand with the In Toion Company, has written a pantomime which the " Firm " will produce in the immediate future. It is stated that Mr Berkeley intends to publish a book bearing the title " Fairy Tales and Other Yams." •In the new melodrama, Woman and Wine, recently produced in London, the principal sensation — and a rather revolting one — is a desperate fight with knives between two women, apparently stripped to the waist. It recalls the well-known engraving of the female duellists, but is a more ferocious spectacle altogether. | Strange to say some leading critics have approved this scene. A new prompter's box has been introduced in the Imperial Kussian theatres. The invention consists of a box that resembles a shell, and is enclosed within a short cylinder. The timber employed is thickly varnished and covered with alter- j nate layers of folt and compressed paper. The prompter, is at a depth which makes him invisible to the audience, and his remarks are inaudible in ' the auditorium ; but a whisper from him'- can be heard distinctly on the stage. Miss Julia Arthur, with whom the Australia actor, Mr Scot Inglis, is touring in America iv A Lady of Quality, met with a severe misfortune on Oct. 7, due to the destruction shortly after the opening night of the Detroit Opera House, together -with all scenery, costumes and many of the personal belongings of the company. It has been recalled that only once before has fate been so unkind to a new star. In the early eighties Mrs Langtry' and her manager, Mr Henry E. Abbey, stood in the window, of a Broadway hotel and watched the burning of the Park Theatre, in which that very night Mrs Langtry was to have made her American debut.