THE STAGE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 20042, 3 September 1920, Page 6

THE STAGE.

NOTES AND COMMENTS. e (By <• THE LIMELIGHT MAX.”) Theatre-goers are always interested in the appearance of a now star, and in i igor Rose,” the new J. and N. Tait play to be seen here on Wednesday next, u >ctois not only this attraction, but the added novelty of an entirely new coinnany.-' Miss Marie Ilka comes with an English and American reputation aa u great actress, and her reputation has uecn enthusiastically confirmed by Australian critics. The Melbourne “ Ago” writes:—” Marie Ilka rose to heights of emotion which left no doubt concerning her genius” ,• and tho “Argus’ ’says:— J. and N. Tait have been fortunate in engaging Marie Ilka. By her ability, aided by her personal charms, she created a well-deserved success.” Apart from the leading character, the varied types vividly sketched by tho supportmg artists have evoked special praise. The drama was _ first produced in Now 9 l '.' since which it has been staged English-speaking world. \\ hen the piece was produced in Syd“3; the “Sun” commented as follows: Some of the finest dramatic entertainment that could be sought. Marie Hkas performance is wonderful. She is passionate one moment, gentle and uinsomo the next. But oven in her inoro peaceful periods the audience is always conscious of the fire that underlies, her whole personality, ready to blaze up ns occasion demands. The play is first-ralo, and it is long since Sydney has seen suck a varied collection of characters in one offering. The company is almost entirely new. As far as scenic accompaniment is concerned, . • n S e , r Hose ’ is among the outstanding plays of recent years. The second not mainly passes in the dark, except tor the illuminations of lightning in a marvellously realistic storm. If tho production had none of its many other attractions, that storm would be sufficient justification for a visit to the Palace.” The Gilbert and Sullivan roper - orY season at Her Majesty’s Theatre, Melbourne, is one of quick changes—six higlita to each opera. “ The Yoonicn of tho Guard- was presented last Saturday, and the piece picked to follow was ” lolanthc.” Tribute was paid in Sydney tho other day to the generous treatment extended by Mr Hugh D. M’lntosh to the members of the chorus and ballet with tho livoh companies. The salaries paid by the Tivoli managemnt to chorus girls aro easily the highest in Australia, in cases going as high as £lO per Mrs Osborne (Miss Maud Jeffries) recently passed through Auckland by the lyagara, on her way back to Australia. It is fifteen or sixteen years since this well-known English actress played her last Australasian engagement with •HHnis Knight, appearing in “ Tho Sign tho Gross, "A Royal Divorc©, 0 and The Eternal City.” She was the original Mercia in the Wilson Barret play, with Barrett as Marcus. . Hen Puller was to leave San Francisco on August -20 on his return to Australia. While visiting England and America he bought more than 150 plays for tho various companies of the Fuller management, and engaged a number of vaudeville performers. Ho purchased three pantomimes, all for production this year. “Cinderella” will be given nt the Princess Theatre, Melbourne; “Bluebeard” at the Grand Opera House, Sydney; and “ The Babes in the Wood ” at the Majestic Theatre, Newtown, Sydney. Specialty acts have been engaged abroad for all these productions. In connection with the chorus strike at the presentation of “Irene” by J. O. Williamson, Ltd., when the performance was given with a chorus of live or six, thfo “Sunday Times” (Sydney) says: “ A bone of contention with the girls is the introduction of what they call amateurs into the chorus. All thief members, of both sexes, resent this, and state that the amateurs, by which they refer to three or four daughters of well-to-do people, are doing legitimate chorus girls out of a job and accepting money that they do not want, but others ard badljj in need of. Three of the tern ale section of the chorus of “ Irene ” have dependents.” ■; Tho Holloway and Essie Jenyns Shakespearean Company, doing a highly successful provincial tour on tho heels of a triumphant season at Melbourne Bijou, had come te Bendigo, and was showing tho charming young Australian actress in her most successful role, that of Rosalind in “ As You Like It ” (writes a “Bulletin” correspondent). William Holloway was Orlando, a part for which his years and natural disadvantages singularly unfitted him, so much so that a local paper said the effort was “rich in impossibilities.” It was the third night. Rosalind in male attire, hearing of the encounter of Orlando with the lioness, faints, whereat Celia cries: “Ganymede, sweet Ganymede!” Then arose a. miner in the front stalls, advanced to tho orchestra railing, and, leaning across, said: “Ganymede bo d—d! I’ll bet you five quid it’s a woman.” Rosalind’s attempt at a male disguise had not struck the mining population as effective. , On another occasion Bill Holloway’s Rosalind received a note and a parcel from a few admirers in Ballarat. The note pointed out that the male disguise she adopted in “As You [Like It ” deceived nobody, and the writer concluded: “ You’ll have ’em all boat, Miss, if you wear these things.” “ These things” were trousers, jumper, hat and boots, such as a miner would wear on the job. But Rosalind funked it, and that night when she appeared in her customary shepherd’s array there was a roar of disapproval from a band of miners in the gallery, and a voice cried: “ It’s no good, Miss; everybody knows you in them.” Another “ Bulletin ” , correspondent relates;— The late William Holloway had put up a thrilling drama at a Melbourne theatre, and had reached the highly-emotional scene where tho splendid hero calls at the hut door of tho villain suspected of murdering tho beautiful heroine. Plain Bill knocked once, twice, thrice. “Gerald Armitage, come forth!” he said. Again he knocked. “ Gerald Amitage, come forth to your doom!” said he. He knocked yet again, and then a. grimy stagehand, a kindly but ignorant soul, anxious to be helpful, stepped on to the stage in full view of tho whole audience, and said he, “ ’S no use yer knockin’ there, Mr Holloway; the bloko ain’t to home. I seen him go out tho back way.” With Gilbert and Sullivan opera renewing its sway over and its charm for tho lovers of light opera in Australia, some friends and admirers of Mr Howard Vernon -think it an opportune time for a complimentary matinee to that ( fine actor and artist (says tho “ Australasian ’). One gentleman writing on the subject says:—“ If Howard Vernon, tlie grand old musical comedian, doesn’t deserve a benefit from the the-atre-going public of this city just now, then 1 am considerably out in my reckoning.” With that sentiment most of us will cordially agree. Possibly a generation has arisen that knows not Joseph, but happily, there are enough of tho old school left to make the compliment to MrVenioii as thorough and substantial as it should be. Mr Howard Vernon’s name and art are "so inseparably ' associated with Gilbert and Sullivan in Australia that it is impossible to xecall one without remembering tho other. In London, and before the operas had .established their distinctive and ineffaceable charm, ~,ore was an impression that Grossmith’g work was the chief factor in their success. and miioh the same thing might have been said of Mr Howard Vernon in the curly

experiences of-the operas in Australia, ihe time for a compliment as tho proposed benefit is, in many ways peculiarly opportune, and we hope to hear of its being taken up with an enthusiasm wot thy of tho object. . T ' lo remains of Mdme Patti, who. died in Septombe. - , 1.919, were recently convoyed from Folkscone to France for rote) mint in Paris Hupino will givo one of his quaint dame impersonations in South Ainca in the corning,pantomime seasonHe has been engaged by African TheBcautf » for “ Tho . Sleeping Handel s organ, on which Messiah was composed, was sold at tho sale of tho JOhnston heirlooms at Kilmore, Co; Armagh, for £231. It is of mahogany, carved m the Chippendale style, and formerly belonged to Lord Ely. By the simple, straightforward business of singing decent music-hall songs in male attire Vesta Tilley has grown rety, very rich (says mi Australian paper). lor more than thirty of the forty yeqrs she has been London’s famous male impersonator ” she has earned such a largo'salary and turned it to such good account that theatrical rumour now credits her with £200,000 to go on with. “Pasteur” is a play produced in London at the Aldwych by a French company. Luqicn Guitry played Pasteur, tho great French scientist, in a play which is without plot, development, or intrigue. There is not a tingle female character in it. The great scene is that, in which the famous scientist occupies the stage alone, holding the rostrum, notes in liand, and addressing the members of tho Academy of Medicine in 1860. His opponents and interrupters interjecting comment, approval, or satirical remarks are represented by actors among tho audience—a difficult, ingenious, but completely effective device. Q. IT. Sims, who has written more plays of one sort or another—from “The Lights of London” to pantomime—than any .oilier Englishman living, has been exclaiming over the luck of the modern dramatist. A recent law-suit brought out the fact that an American author got 10 per cent on gross receipts of the London production and 25 per cent of tho profits. Sims recalls his first deal with manager .Charles VVyndham, who was entirely friendly, hut could not get the' proprietors to go beyond £SO down and £1 a night for fifty nights. About the same time—close on half a century ago —ho translated from tho French tho whole of Balzac’s “ Droll Stories ” —650 pages—for £SO. “ When Mr Jascha Heifetz gave his third recital at the Queen’s Hall, in London, there was once again an enormous audience to hear him. Beyond a doubt, Heifetz has succeeded in achieving that feat which it is given only to tho very few to accomplish—the feat of mobilising the whole of London’s potential concert-going public,” says the “Westminster. Gazette.” “It is genuinely doubtful if violin playing quite so astonishing in its way as Ileilias even been heard by anyone now living. Certainly, there have been violinists as groat, and greater in some respects. Heifetz’s playing has not the grandeur and nobility of Joachim’s, for instance, or the passion and feeling which used to distinguish that of isaje at his host. But in its way, for sheer beauty _ of tone, immaculate finish of execution, and exquisite refinement of expression, it is unsurpassable; and the player of whom such things can be said may well have the world at his feet.” Handel was only seven when he insisted on following Ids father to the court of Saxe-Weisenfels. whoso prince hearing him play on the organ in church atter the ■ service was over, persuaded ms father to give the boy'a chance. By the time he was nine ho began to compose churoh services for voices and instruments and did so every week for three years. But Handel "was a tremendous : gouTinandiser. He ordered dinner for three at a hotel, and wheni asked, if.-he would wait for the others, replied: “I am the others, servo tint dinner,” and he ate all of it. A story is told of Handel that while seated at dinner with so mo other musicians ho exclaimed, “Oh, I have do taught!” Those, about him’begged that ho go into another room and write down “do taught,” lest they lose some wonderful composition. Handel did this several times, when one of Ida friends looked through the keyhole and saw him pouring down some Burgundy which an admirer had sentliirn and ho did not wish to share with the others.

A NOTABLE FAREWELL Miss Vesta Tilley's farewell of the English vaudeville stago was made at the Colisseum. (London) on the evening of Juno 5, and was tho most noteworthy event of its kind during King George's reign. This is how tho remarkable sceuo was described by the Sunday " Herald " : "A slim, boyish figure, with rather a sad smile, stood on the stago of tho Ooliese'um while eager hands literally piled flowers around it. Flowers! There were not only bouquets of them, but huge baskets of them, great vases of them, and. overflowing pots of them Tho soldier boy in the centre began to look like a- living statue on some commomoration day. Then a tall, gracious, white-haired woman camo on, threaded her way through the masses of bloom, and—kissed that soldier boy. It was tho tribute of Ellen Terry—tho undoubted queen! of tho ''legitimate' stage—to Vesta Tiller, for years tho idol of the variety halls, who, in khaki , ™ hes^. ll . a iJi ust ,* un S for tb « last time The Girl Who Loves a Soldier.' Ellen Terry declared that she wouldn't make a speech, yet she did.- ' I couldn't sa? enough about this wonderful little lady"' she began. 'No, I mean this little gentleman ' as she hurriedly corrected herself 'T: know if I started I diouJd nevei< leave off'. She doesn't know, what she has done for England by making England laugh when she needed to laugh. She ought to have a crown (" Giro her two half-crowns." was shouted from one of the boxes), but 1 will give her a palm.' And Miss Tern- filled Miss Tilley's hands with palm leaves before presenting her uitii tho autographs in a handsome album of nearly a million of her admirers. " ' I don't know how to thank 'you. for what you have done for tnc,'"replied V«Kta. 'My future will bo to repay what I owo to wv audiences.' # 'rhatK nothing,' phoned tho cillery m unison by wav of replv. ' Tho one thing thn't t wish to do is t 0 help those who cannot help themselves. My heart goes out to you—and—and -' "So Tilley broke down, and finished by raining tears on tho breast of Miss Terry. But a few minutes afterwards sho was all smiles once more. For when the nudianco told her with rare lung power that she was a ' jolly good fellow,' and everyone in the eopt her husband, Sir Walter Leece, M.P.) rose to domarid that she should forget that sho ever meant to leave them, but would stay on aa usual, she laughed and continued to do so while sho and Ellen Terry danced a, minuet together. Then more cheers were given for Vesta; her husband was compelled to make a. speech, and finally the peoples idol was loaded up with gifts. But there was only one, gift that" she kissed; it was a mascot doll sent, up by the girls who sell T>roarnmm«s in front of the house. At 10.15 Tilley bad said her last farewell to the- halls, but in tha hearts of h£r audiences she will' sit enthroned for rainy a wistful year."