MUSIC AND THE STAGE

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18009, 20 November 1926, Page 23

MUSIC AND THE STAGE

Heralded as ‘Americas greatest aggregation of coloured entertainers,” the j Ferris Jazzland Revue Company will make its appearance at the Theatre I Royal on Monday next. A round ; dozen performers, of both sexes and of ■; every hue, from a delicate pink to the • real ebony—some with jazz instruj meats, some vocalists, and some dancers—provide an hour's entertainment of great variety. With an attractive stage setting, the time-honoured methods of minstrel shows are indulged in, plus novelties in the way of eccentric dancing. In this respect Clifford Duncan. “the world’s greatest female impersonator,” and Dudley Dickanson excel; but the whole company with plantation songs, cake-walking, and Charleston dancing, keep things going with a swing to the accompaniment of jazz music. Mr Joseph Cunningham’s new English Comedy Company has arrived in New Zealand after a successful season in Australia, and opened at the Wellington Opera House on Tuesday. The company’s repertoire contains some big London successes, including Frank Hudson’s witty satire on the modern divorce court, “The Unfair Sex." “ Eliza Comes to Stay," “ Sport of Kings ” and “ Outward Bound." N T ellie Stewart’s mother Mrs Guerin, was Sydney’s original Mari tana at the old Victoria Theatre, Pitt Street. This was on April 19, 1849. J. Howson was Don Caesar, F. Howson was Don Jose, and G. H. Rogers was the King, with his wife as Lazarillo. 2*2 2*2 2*2 The coming year will be altogether notable as regards the number and quality of the musical attractions to be presented by J. and N T . Tait. The first of these will probably be Paderewski, the great pianist being followed by the young violinist, Jascha Heifetz, after whom will come Mischa Levitski, the pianist, Tito Schipa, the famous Italian operatic tenor; Joseph llislop. the noted English lyric tenor, and others. 2*2 2-2 2*2 Mr W. J. Douglas, general manager, Hugh J. Ward Theatres Pty., in an interview in Melbourne, stated veryemphatically that the Fuller management intends staging a comprehensive programme of plays, rarging from Shakespeare to pictures, in its chain of theatres. throughout the Commonwealth, which would seem to suggest that there is no foundation for the various rumours concerning the amalgamation of the Williamson and Fuller interests. There is not likely to be a permanent withdrawal of the Fullers from “serious" theatrical business (writes a “Bulletin” correspondent). The Ward interests in the ventures they shared with him have been transferred to the firm, and this has knocked them hack a bit; but directly they can get into their stride again the Fullers will be filling their own theatres with their own shows—or with the enterprises they lure to Australia on a partnership basis. 2-2 2*2 2*5 Hugh J. Ward, whose retirement from the Fuller-Ward combination has been annour ced, first went to Australia in 1899 as a principal in Henry Hoyt’s American comedy - troupe, whose chief comedian was Harry Conor. The company played two overrated American musical comedies, “ A Trip to Chinatown ” and “ A Stranger in New York." Mr Ward later gained fame in Australia and New Zealand in “ The Man from Mexico ” and “ The Music Master." :*2 Alfred Ilill (says the Sydney “ Bulletin ”) was offered some tempting baits to call America his home, one of them being a post at the M’Phail School at Minneapolis, where there are 12,000 students, together with the conductorship of the Apollo Club; but in spite of all temptations he has returned to his work at Sydney Conservator!um with a renewed desire to make this city an i operatic centre and provide it with a permanent orchestra. The trip was not unprofitable on the financial side. The traveller contributed to some performances, placed several musical works and supervised the making of gramophone records of his work, including several of his Maori compositions. If laughter’s a tonic. “Abie's Irish Rose” is a whole chemist's shop (says a writer in “Smith's Weekly,” Sydney). Uproarious farce for the most part, there is, nevertheless, a background of real comedy. Responsibility for it lies chiefly with Jack Trainer’ in the role of Solomon Levy. This is both a portrait of a type and an interpretation of a character. Trainer is the most positively Jewish actor in a generation of Sydney-seen plays; but his humour is universal in its appeal. Jewish humour, of course, is the most fundamental of all. The Jew is the world’s comedian, because he is, and always has been, the world’s butt. All the characters in “ Abie ” are cast for type —even the little train-bearer—and well cast.

“Abie’s Irish Rose” just couldn’t help being a success, as anyone who knows the stage from behind the footlights could have told the crtics in U.S.A. who tried to scuttle it out of New York in its infancy (writes the Sydney correspondent, of the Auckland “Star”). It has all the ingredients of a sure-fire success. Anne Nicholls set out to cater for a huge Jew-ish-Irish public, and, in doing so, provided laughter for the rest of the world. The world has not stopped rocking yet—Sydney is at it now. There is sentiment —Jewish and Irish * sentiment—laid on with a trowel—there are the old obvious jokes that

never miss their “lavlgh.” The foibles of the Irish are all there for the Jews to ridicule, and the eccentricities of the Jews are-set well forward for the Irish to guffaw at, and the combined traits of both races make excellent laughter for the non-combatants. But there is no ill-nature from curtain rise to curtain fall. A few prolonged kisses illustrated love’s young dream. If the types are exaggerated it is in the cause of fun, and the crudities of the play are excusable when hcalthy laughter follows in their wake. Anne Nicholls has explained her own success in a footnote on the programme: “Most plays are written to let some actor or actress do their stuff. My play was written for the public.” London is shortly to have its first subscription theatre. The Forum Theatre Guild, formed on lines similar to those of the Theatre Guild of New York, is described by its promoters as “ an attempt to make stage history by the establishment of a permanent theatre of high artistic endeavour on a subscription basis.” Though it looks forward to eventual possession of its own theatre, the Guild's first intention is to take one of the best West end theatres. Galsworthy’s brilliant play, “ Old English,” has now been presented bof in Sydney and Melbourne by T. C. Williamson. Ltd. Gregan M'Mahon appeared as the eighty-years-old survivor of early Victorian days, who is described by English critics as Galsworthy’s most masterly character study. Old English, who has been something of a rip in his day. has a sardonic humour, which adds interest to his dominating personality. In spite of his years, he remains mentally alert, and rules with a clear head and an iron hand. When staged in Sydney the critics declared that Old Hey thorp was the best character study Gregan M'Mahon had ever presented in the long series of brilliant characterisations he has already given to the Australian stage. A writer in the “ Musical News and Herald ” has something amusing to say about the musical errors of popular writers. He talks particulars of the reporter's continual reference to Sir Henry Wood and his “ ivory baton.” The paragraphist points out that no musician alive has ever seen a conductor using an ivory baton. The conductors ward is made out of wood, and the lightest wood at that. His arm, tireless as it is. could not stand the strain of anything heavier; ivory would assume the weight of a dumbbell before the overture was through. “If anyone doubts the physical endurance necessary for conducting, let him beat through a symphony with nothing in the hand at all. Lacking practice, he will not arrive at the ‘ Scherzo.’ ” Thus is another of our pretty illusions dispersed. m Another “gold .mine” was discovered on Broadway the other night (writes a New York correspondent). Joe Harris, grub-staked by Crosby Gaige, was the prospector. The mine is a new comedy-drama called “Broadway,” that opened at the Broadhurst Theatre. It should make the prospector and his backer half a million dollars before the vein gives out. Once in a while a play, that is just downright entertainment, comes to light along the Great White Way and the public flocks to see it. Artistic plays, those that depend on acute sex, and semi-nude revues, always attract attention and patronage, for a while, but there is ever a greater market for the one that is so human it gets under the skin of the patron. Such a play is “Broadway." It should be with us two years. The story is that of rival bootleg kings in New York and the scenes are all laid in the anteroom of a Broadway night club. k :: According to the London “Daily Sketch,” Sir Alfred Butt with “Peg o’ My Heart,” enjoyed the prosperity resulting from a run totalling 100 T performances. “Will he repeat this record with 'Rose Marie ?” asks the London “Daily Sketch” of August 21. ‘ This musical play will be given .its 600th performance at Drury Lane Theatre this evening. The box office is already dealing with numerous applications for seats for Boxing Night! Rose Marie’

is now an established success in Australia. Sir George Tallis, managing director of the famous theatrical firm of J. C. Williamson. Ltd . has written to Sir Alfred: ‘Everybody was inter ested to learn that your wonderful production of ‘Rose Marie' had beaten all records since 1660. One paper, in reprinting the Press cable from Lon don, mentioned the date as 1060, and I subsequently met a few people who apparently accepted that date as be ing quite correct. They evidently thought Drury Lane was in full swing when William the Conqueror came The bad state of the drama in London is a perennial subject in the English rewspaper and periodical (writes “ Pilgrim ” in the Dunedin “ Evening Star '). We are invited to look upon art tongue-tied by authority and commercialism, and to compare its sad condition with the vigorous life of the drama in other countries. That commercialism does hamper the dramatist nobody can deny. The extraordinarily high rents charged for West End theatres are a grievous burden on this branch of art. I am certain, however, that things are not nearly so bad as some people believe them to be. I was struck by the number of good plays staged during the four months I was in England, and the range of their subjects. Go back a generation and you will not find anything like the same range or the same originality. The renaissance in the British drama during the last twenty or thirty years has been extraordinary, and though a sad mass of rubbish is produced in London the theatre there reflects the new spirit of the age. $•: % « One of the most remarkable feats of the late Harry Houdini. who died at Detroit, Michigan, On October 31. at the age of 42 years, was to extricate himself from all manner of perilou: postions after having allowed himself to be strapped with a straight-waist-coat. This he succeeded in doing while suspended by a rope at a great height above the street, and even after having been thrown into the water. Mr Houdini recently made a startling assertion in New York to the effect that fear and not poisoning by carbon-diox-ide is the cause of the death of miners and other persons trapped in airtight compartments. The magician had himself been sunk in a sealed coffin in a swimming pool for an hour and a half to prove his contention. Dr W. McConnell, qf Philadelphia, and of the United States Mines Department, who examined Houdini after he was released from the coffin, expressed himself amazed with the demonstration, and declared that Houdini’s theory might cause important changes in safety methods in mines. The coffin in which Houdini was soldered up was computed to contain 34,398 cubic inches of air. The oxygen in that air, according to the scientists, should all have been used up in three or four minutes, but Houdini breathed it for ninety minutes, and emerged smiling. “Anyone could do it,” he declared afterwards.' “The important thing is to believe that you are safe, not to breathe deeply, and not to make unnecessary movements.” London’s mania for standing in line outside theatres has been indulged in to an almost unprecedented extent with the current revival of Gilbert and Sullivan operas at the Prince's Theatre (says a London paper). The first performance .was “The Mikado.” There were long queues when the box office opened, but they were mere bobtails beside the queues which formed lor the large sections of unreserved seats in the pit and gallery. The performance opened on a Monday cveqing. Sunday evening, about the time when most persons were entering other thea tres, a taxi driver appeared at the Prince’s and began a twenty-four hour vigil outside the doors of the pit. He was soon joined by nearly a score more early arrivals, several of them women. They brought along camp stools, leaned up against the theatre wall, and made a night of it, A few thoughtful ones had lunches, and, like wrecked mariners, the group shared in the spoils. The taxi driver contributed his bit toward the success of the night by offering the shelter of his cab to groups of four who went in relays.

' It was a warm, cloudless evening, however. and the Gilbert and Sullivan enthusiasts professed to enjoy their long encampment. Dozens of new arrivals began to lengthen the queue shortly after dawn. They had only some twelve hours to wait. Several years ! ago an attempt was made to introduce the American system of reservi ing all theatre seats, but the public j resented the innovation. London likes j to wait in line. STAGE LIES. THEATRE COULD NOT EXIST WITHOUT THEM. Thirty years ago or thereabout-! one of the most gifted of writers in English lamanted with mooh solemnity “the decay of lying." (says “The Australasian.”) The burden of his essay- .i skilfully argued essay in dialogue form —was that a touch of fiction gave artistic value to life and literature and to the drama. There need have been no fear of lying vanishing from the stage. Frankly, the theatre could not do without it. In most of the plays now in Melbourne it is conspicuous and in some it is the mainstay. Deception, let us call it, to save the use of the harsher word. In ' Abie's Irish Rose” Abie deceives his father concerning the race of his bride In “Katja” there are many comic lies between Patricia and her father, and between the same girl and her lover. There are lies, too. for the purpose of dramatic plot. “Tell Me More” might almost l>e called “Tell Me More Taradiddles.” “Is Zat So?” has its share • f humorous deception, and “Lady. Be Good,” does rather well in the same direction. As for “Nothing But Lies’’— well; think of the title. It is a proud ambition to be able to tell nothing but lies. Few of u have aspired to eminence in that direction. The tendency, rather, is to am to tell nothing but the truth yet we all know how hard it is to live up to that ideal. Gilbert illustrated the fact in his early comedy “The Palace of Truth, and the play may have been suggested by one of the eighteenth-century volumes of Madame de Genlis, who was so very moral in her writings. In Gilbert's play several of the characters tell the truth in an unexpected and most embarrassing way. Indeed, this is characteristic of much of Gilbert's work. A true descendant of "The Palace of Truth” was the American farce-comedy “Nothing But the Truth,” in which Mr Max Figinan appeared in Australia not so many years ago. In that plav the leading character had the painful duty under severe penalties, of telling only the truth until the clock reached a certain hour. In “Nothing But Lies" the art of fiction has full scope. Mr Harry Green, as George Washington Cohen, begins happily in the prologue by telling nothing but the truth, but his experience is so bitter that in the main section of the play he lives very actively up to the title. Lies crackle all over the place like shots from a machine-gun. This may be very shocking from the standpoint of a severe moralist, but in view of the plot of the play and of the cause of amusement it seems to justify itself. Without lies, it seems, the ■ tage could not exist. Faroe especially is fullv dependent on them. In Sir Charles Hawtrey appeared in so many farces, and played his parts so skilfully, that he obtained the reputation of being the best, liar on the stage. Probably he was; yet many other actors have had modest, aspirations to the same reputation, and several have done much towards deserving it. Hundreds of farces have contained deception from beginning to end. much to the amusement of the audience?