MUSIC AND THE STAGE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18085, 19 February 1927, Page 26

MUSIC AND THE STAGE.

(CONTINUED FROM PAGE 23.) Many women wept throughout the baptismal service of Rosaline Haddon, the daughter of Rosaline Courtneidge, the actress, who died recently a month after the birth of the child. Miss Court neidge was the daughter of Kir Robert < Courtneidge, a leading manager, and was the wife of Mr Peter Haddon, the musical comedy actor The christening ceremony was held at All Saints’ Langham place, London, at half past two o’clock, the exact time of the . mother’s wedding The incumbent j prayed specially for “the fragrant memory of the mother of this little one on the anniversary' of her wedding day.” The godparents included Mr Edgar Wallace, the novelist, and the Duchess of Athol 1. How hungry London is for Sunday' theatrical performances is shown by the number of Christian members of the Jewish Drama League, which had been given a good push-off by Zangwill (writes a London correspondent). As a society selling its tickets only to its members, it is entitled to have its shows on the Sunday. The Chamberlain’s regulations merely prohibit the sale of tickets to anyone who has not been a member of the league for seven days. Now some Jews arc complaining that they can’t get their seats because of Christians who have joined the league and got in ahead of them. For a performance of “ Yellow Sands ” at the Hay market all the good seats were sold out two weeks ahead of time. The land that produced the wooden nutmeg has now gone one letter by inventing the tin chorus girl (says a Sydney writer). The American chorus girl is long on looks, but short on voice, so lfl° rej l ce Ziegfeld, of the Ziegfeld Follies, which “ glorify' the American girl,” has called in the loud speaker to help swell the vocal offering of the beauty chorus. The panatrope, the last word in musical production, is utilised, and the magnified voice of the chorus ladies is fed back to two large cone type loud speakers placed in the apron of the stage. Under the control of an expert electrician, the music can be blended with the voices of its owners and made of any desired volume, giving the effect of an extremely large chorus. Australian experience suggests that a device like this is wanted more for the principals. The American theatre, is being Anglicised just as much as the British theatre is becoming Americanised (say's a London cable, dated December 27, and published in the American Press). Giving this assurance in an address, lan Hay, novelist and playwright, also asserted that “ actors and actresses in America are crying out for a censor who would save them from some of the parts they* play, and from the lines put into their mouths. We have comparatively few emotional actors,” he continued, “ because we are not an emotional people. As for English and American actresses, I can only' say that at the top of the tree in either country will be found about the same degree c>f beauty, talent and excellence. Two things can be said about the American actresses: First, there is an inexhaustible supply of them, and secondly, they mature at a much younger age than ours do.” The threat to convert the Queen’s Hall into a cinema has plunged the music world in mourning (writes a London correspondent.) If the Queen’s goes, London will be without any proper concert hall, for the Royal Albert, except for big orchestral or choral events, is quite unsuitable for musical affairs. Even orchestral and choral performances are not heard at their best within its too spacious and badlyconstructed area. For singers and violinists particularly' the results are often ghastly'. Covent Garden Opera House is at present given over to jazz; Hammerstein’s London Opera is a picturehouse; the new St James’s is no longer heard of as a concert-hall; and Steinway Ilall has been diverted from its purpose. The Wigmore and -Eolian Halls hold only about 500 to 600, so that London’s facilities for hearing music have now been reduced most seriously'. The depression in the English concert world is close to tragedy. Brand Lane, the Manchester impressario, announces, too, that jazz and broadcasting have brought in sight the end of his long series of high-class concerts.

A list of “ memorable plays ” staged in London during 1926, compiled by the well-known critic S. R. Littlewood for the “ Daily Mail Year Book,” includes Sean O’Casey’s “ The Plough and the Stars ” (almost as great an attraction as same author’s “Juno and the Paycock”); Autumn Fire,” by T. C. Murray (like O’Casey, a product of the Dublin Abbey Theatre); a costume comedy', founded on the life of Pepys, by J. Bernard Fagan, “ And So to Bed.” Amongst British comedies that had good runs were “ The Cat’s Cradle,” by' A. and I*. Stuart, in which Marie Tempest and Graham Browne appeared; “This Woman Business," by Ben Levy; and Philpotts’s “Yellow Sands,” which, produced in early November, looks like staying at the Haymarket for a year or more. John Galsworthy’s “ Escape” (recently put on in Paris by an English company) ; and Edgar Wallace’s “ The Ringer,” described as “ a brilliant crook play” (which started at Wyndham’s in May last and is still in the bills), were the outstanding drama hits. Mr Cyril Maude, the well-known actor, has now settled down in Devonshire, and says that he finds life there so very pleasant, “especially that lovely feeling of not having to go out at night to work,” that he is not quite sure whether he will act on the English stage again. This was one of the chief points of an interesting speech which he made the other day when entertained in London at luncheon by the members of the English-speaking Union. References were made to the fact that Mr Maude had spent twelve years of his life on the other side of the Atlantic, and alluding to this, Mr Maude said that it was in America that he began his life as an actor, and, as far as he could see, there, too, he had finished it. He recalled that he had played in every possible town in America, and in a few impossible ones. Speaking of the American stage, Mr Maude said that voice culture was everywhere being taken up, and one could now hardly tell any' difference between the speech of the principal American actors and actresses and those of England. Incidentally', he mentioned that Americans loved the sound of the English voice, and genuinely' appreciated all English acting-—a circumstance ■which has also forcibly' attracted the attention of other visitors to the United States.