THE THEATRE. DRAMATIC NOTES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 8316, 15 May 1905, Page 1

THE THEATRE. DRAMATIC NOTES.

(By PROMPTER.) That the art of Billy Emerson, the famous minstrel, still has a potent influence upon bis contemporaries and followers, was proved' riot long ago in an' interview with Carroll Johnson. This popular American minstrel was being complimented on his wonderful abilities in his line of entertainment. One of his admirers went so far as to declare his work equal to that of Billy Emerson. "I'm proud to be mentioned in the Bame class, but I tell you, boys," said Johnson, " neither I, nor any other in this business, cquld touch his work, nor ever will. He was alone in it. Why, he put new life and . his •unsurpassable art into everything he did on the stage. He was Emerson— the rest of us are only Emersonians." It is a well-known fact that thoße ,who are well able to pay for theatre tickets are abnormally delighted when , i they can see a performance without paying for if. They would much . rather be presented with a pass than pick up on the street the money price ,of two seats, so powerful is that -trait in human nature "to get something .for nothing." Jefferson De Angelis, ; the American actor, at present heaping 'up fame for himself in "Fantana," is responsible for the following illustration of the above truth. The comedian recently received a letter from a ' %ell-kn6wn millionaire in Chicago, saying: "I hear widespread reports of your great work. Please send me two seats for ' Fantana.'" De Angelis mailed back, on the blank side of the. letter, the : following trite r eply :— " 1 1 hear widespread reports of your great •wealth. Please send four dollars fo?

'the two seats." ; , ' '/.'. The "Star."/ 1 novelty for Barnum /and Bailey's present season in America is "Looping the Gap." in an automtv~n4»?e/, f'i'-f uto-Bblide/ -the , Dip of i it is calledj is truly a sensational number. The occupant of the automobile is Mdlle De Tiers, a young and attraciave Frenchwoman, and her | fearlessness in performing the feat is , reh arkable.; The -'act consists of the 'rider in the automobile descending an incline of about* forty-five degrees, which, taking a turn under and up- ; ward, reverses the machine so that the rider is upside, down. In this position the machine with its occupant leaps a gapof about ■ fifteen feet, when it strikes the other side of the loop and descends to terra firma. It is all over 1 almost before the spectator can realise • what has occurred, and he is only biought to his senses by the appearance of the fair and daring rider bowing her. acknowledgments to an applauding multitude. -^

A good story is. told^ of the late Mr Joseph Jefferson. -While-' he 'was touring in the English provinces, Jefferson met Charles' Mathews, who was playing at another theatre in the same town. Jefferson- was, of course, playing only "Rip Van Winkle," and MathewS was playing* a round of his favourite parts. At the hotel they naturally forgathered, and Mathews began to rally his friend on the fact that he played only one part. . " Call yourself an actor ! ' ' he said. "Why, all you have is a white wig and a , beard and some tattered clothes in a bag. With these you. go through the country playing one single- part. Actor, indeed"!" " Quite true," pid Jefferson; " I know I only play one' part. You change the .way- in: which the stripes, or your trousers go and think you play another part, but you are Charles Mathews all the time. Which do you think is better, to play one part twenty different ways, as I play 'Rip/ or twenty parts all in one wayF'; 1 ' An old . actor, in a . communicative { mood, thus described certain little artifices for "forcing "or stimulating the applause of an audience. "One way of securing repeated calls before the curtain is to keep the theatre in darkness, after the curtain has fallen, until the required number ' of calls has) been obtained. Even after the last jact playgoers will stand about find app laud rather than grope about i», the eliin lighV'for exits. ) A favourite device With 'some stage managers is to ' shake the curtain when the hand-clap-ping begins to flag. Almost always then ; the •'• applause will; break out afresh. No doubt the secret is that the. audience, seeing the- curtain mov- ; Ing thinks that it will be raised again, either for an encore or the reappearance of the actors. Another , method of producing applause when an entrance is made is for the orchestra to play rapidly and loudly, and the jperformer to appear at the back,, of the stage at an elevation and walk down a, flight of stairs. .The effect can be v made very strong, especially if the approach towards the footlights is carIried put in an impressive and deliberate way."— ." Cassell's Saturday Journal."

The Sydney Lyceum, which was recently purchased by a gentleman said to be devoted to the moral reform of the community, was recently V opened under its new management. The "Bulletin" criticises the entertainment thus.: -r When you purchase a theatre, you do not thereby get the goodwill or it* audiences. This was made very endenjt at the Svdriey Lyceum last Saturday night/ when the first of a proposed series of People's Concerts was given. There were not more than 150 people in the house, and the trail of the amateur was over the whole entertainment. When the curtain went up; to the very top of the proscenium— there-t by ihowing the mechanism for lowering

the scenery — all the lights in the auditorium went out and remained out. None of the performers knew much about the stage. Their ideas as to bowing were crude, and they found it difficult to come on, and still v more difficult to get off. The cinematograph of sailors at Durban, instead of moving laterally, bobbed upwards in a series of o-.T,-r-nipiT-a jerks' — giving .the impression that the Jack Tars were dancu~3 faaiiurs'-- Hornpipe instead of marching on to glory. At half-time the show came to a dead stand, and, after the gallery had nearly bawled its collective lungs away, some of the performers explained that they had not been paid. Such was the first appearance of the Lyceum .in the garb or sanctity. "Bulletin" pars: — Died the other week; Billee Barlow's husband, Menzies Stuart — • the gaudy, swallowvtailed gentleman who used to loom large "in front of the house" where Billee was appearing, and announce himself "to pressmen as " manager for Miss Barlow." The "Bulletin" remembers him sadly as the moving spirit in the unsuccessful libel action which the tigbt-ly-clothed charmer, brougftfc against this paper. There was a verdict for defendant with costs, and if the late Mr Barlow provided for the payment of defendant's costs in his will he has possibly saved his soul. Otherwise' his chances of salvation look rather poor.

. . . Marie Lloyd, just before she took ill, was getting £60 a week from each of two or three, and sometimes four, London- music-halls. When she came to Australia she-got £120. a week and passages both ways from Rickards. Little Tien, when he left London, was the most highly-paid male variety performer. His salary was £70 a week, and he had a run of from two to four halls nightly. Albert Chevalier j. in his day, • received as much as -£2BO weekly at one theatre. The late Dan Leno was paid £250 a week during the last ,two or three years of his life to appear in the Drury Lane pantomime. After those mentioned, R, G. Knowles, Wilkie Bard, and George Robey are the most highly paid, except perhaps Cissie Loftus, who can command almost any salary she care 9to ask for.

Mrs Brown Potter is making another bid for success at the Savoy with a new spectacular play called "Dv Barri,'' after the favourite of Louis XV. of France (writes our London correspondent, under date March 24). The prologue deals with the humble beginnings of Dv BarrL, and a succession of gorgeous stage pictures show, her in the time of her magnificence at the Palace of Versailles, and depict Her disgrace and fall. Finally an epilogue is tacked on, which indicates her condemnation under the Reign of terror,, and her execution at the guillotine in' 1793. ; It is a rambling, loosely-con-:, •structed kind of play — a panorama of pictures, peopled by a multitude of characters, whose only colour is in their clothes. The piece meets with but. faint praise in ; the newspapers. ' ' Unable to praise her play, the critics lavish adjectives on Mrs Brown Potter's red hair, and Parisian gowns. The "TimeSj" as usual, comments in cynical 6tram, thus : — : " To be properly impressive, these spectacular illustrations I of an epoch ought to be given" by the -method of the. kinematbgraph or of those shadow pictures L which Caran d' Ache used to exhibit on a screen at the . Ghat Noir. .. ■' The: -pictures would then have their full effect, unspoiled ■: by incongruities or ineptitudes of speech and ' itory .' ' '■ £b' :^it^te^ jjaais %V . ; arid^ Richelieu and the Du.. Barri have to talk, and yet contrive ; ;tp say nothing.' All, that we can remember of Mrs , Brown-Potter's words is riot their, substance ,but their strange prouncia--tion.; She" says, /The inahn is mabd,'. and all her final 'y's' become 'ee|s.' ! But she wears beautiful red hair, a, series of magnificent' gowns, 'and a fixed ' Gioconda ' smile. Really the i lady works very hard; it is a pity that | so. liberal an expenditure of energy should produce so little emotional result. If the actress would only be simple, natural, unconscious of self for a single moment I" ' The London correspondent of the "Star" supplies the following: — Messrs W. W. Jacobs and Louis N. Parker's refreshing little comedy, "Beauty and the Barge," which is enjoying a most profitable run at the Haymarket Theatre, is now preceded by a gruesome curtain raiter by the same authors, called "The Monkey's Paw." This piece'is in the strongest possible contrast to the frolicsome play succeeding it; it is, in fact, a nightmare in three scenes, for it neither jappeals to the soul, the heart, mind, nor senses ,being simply an attack on the nerves./ It does not move — only disturbs. People who have read the little story by Mr Jacobs, upon which the play is based, will jremember the main eventß. A bibulous" sergeantmajor presents a shrewd old couple with a dead monkey's paw, telling them that anyone who held it in bis hand, and wished hard, should have what he wished, for, though it would surely be to his sorrow. He further averred that three such wishes might be made, and would be granted* So the old man wished for £200, having a mortgage on. his house to that amount. That very night, his own son' was killed and horribly mangled by machinery at the electrical works. The employers , offered £200 in compensation. Tuen, in his remorse, the old man seized the monkey's . paw, arid wished his. son alive again. Straightway, though it w?as in the darkness of the night, ther£ came a knocking at the door, and the good wife would be opening it; But her husband trembled, ! and grew pale with foar, lest the shape at the door should be the grim ghost of their son. Accordingly, while the wife was still fumbling with the bolts, he seized the monkey's paw, and wished his son dead and at peace again, The door. flew, open, there was nothing there. At the Haymarket the piece is presented with all the paraphernalia, of horror — with* flickering candle arid ghastly dawn,:- and so on. j It is admirably acte4 in the main parts by Mr Cyril Maude and Miss Bella Pateman, bu*b hardly seems likely to j "catch; on" with the majority of playgoers. . . '.-: i In the February number of the "Pall Mall Magazine" Mr H. Vivian records a long interview which he has had with Mr John Hare concerning the drama. He asked whether : newspaper criticism

affected plays, and I will repeat the passage \o which the question gave rise. Hare: "Very little. People go away and talk. That is how a play is made or marred. It is much the same as the vogue of a book. But a play stands a r better chance than a book, for a manSwho has bought his seat generally stays to the end, whereas many people throw a book aside if they do not. like the first chapter." Vivian: "And how fa,r is the. public taste irrevocable? Has a play ever been damned and then had a profitable resurrection?" Hare: "A play may be in advance of the public taste. Take the case of, a piece called ' A Scrap of Paper.' ,' Directly I read it I was sure it was excellent. I acted in it at an early period of my career, and it was a hideous failure. Many years later I insisted on reviving it, and the result was a triumphant success. ' The Second Mrs Tanqueray' would probably have been a failure thirty years ago. People would have, been shocked, because they were not ready for it, not educated up to it." Vivian :" You are very sure of its merits if you imply that 'The Second Mrs Tanqueray' could only have failed in the fact of prudery or ignorance. I saw it acted by Madame . Hading at Bucharest, where nothing shocks, and where, in the matter of plays, at any rate, the public does not lack knowledge or experience. Everybody; laughed at it' as grossly unnatural, and the verdict was : • Having seen the second Mrs Tanqueray, we can only rejoice that we never knew the first.' " Hare : " Anyhow, Pinero suits the present taste, and 1 consider his work is good enough to take a permanent place in. our national repertory. I am proud of nothing so. much as having been the means of introducing him to the public when he was still practically unknown."