The Theatrical World

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 193, 15 August 1931, Page 11

The Theatrical World

French Play. The period of the French Revolution has always been a rich source for dramatists. The latest play on the subject, “ Le Sang de Danton ”, has been produced at the Paris Comedie Francaise with great success, and English versions will be presented anon in New York and London. Danton, Robespierre and other historic figures are among the leading characters of Bovhelier’s new play. Remarkable Success. The season of seventeen weeks of the Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Co. in Melbourne, which has just come to an end, was not only a series of remarkable successes as regards the operas, but also broke all records for Gilbert and Sullivan in Australia and New Zealand. The high pitch of enthusiasm aroused by the performances never flagged, and ’ when it is mentioned that, in spite of ’ the adverse conditions prevailing, there \ was never a falling-off in the size of the audiences, every performance being given to practically a full house, some indication of the remarkable achievement is given. The company will return to Melbourne in the early part of . next year, after its long tour of the other States and New Zealand. Long Tack Sam. It is reported that Long Tack Sam and his troupe of wonder workers, who created a sensation in New Zealand a few years ago, will probably tour the Dominion again before long. Sydney Actress. Vivacious Agnes Doyle, who takes the part of Bernice Pearce in “Sons «»' Guns ”, the bright musical comedy which comes to the Theatre Royal on August 22, is a Sydney girl who has met with remarkable success on the Australian stage. She has played many parts, her most popular, perhaps, being in “ The Patsy ”, in which she took the title role some two years ago. In 1926 Miss Doyle won the All-Australian dancing championships with Jack Lyons. Grime Drama Satirised. “ The Crime at Blossoms,” Mordaunt Shairp’s latest effort, produced in London recently, is not a “ crime play.” The author, states an English critic, is not at all concerned to pander to that section of the public whose obscene sentimentality leads them to delight in murder and its trappings, nor is it his purpose to provide material for amateur detectives. On the contrary, Mr Shairp’s game is to satirise the people to whom any notorious crime is a form of public entertainment. A young couple have let their cottage and while they are away a murder is committed in it. When they return the husband is in debt and the wife, finding that the house has gained considerable notoriety through the crime, organises it as a “ show place,” and charges tour, ists for admission. This part of the play, says the author, is founded on actual fact. He attacks the tourists brilliantly. He shows in his collective portrait of them—playing their concertinas, sitting in the “ death chair,” cutting their .initials on the walls —to what , depths a semi-educated democracy without taste or discipline can descend. . lie shows, too, how easily they can be duped by an evil, unscrupulous woman, who develops her “ entertainment ” with all the skill of a mountebank. The husband (played by Colin Clive) is a pleasant, easy-going central character, and the play has a sentimental and rather unsuitably happy ending. Modern Music. “ I am inclined to think that the old - fields have been exhausted by the great i masters of the last two centuries, and that modern composers have to look for ;

some new forms of expression to create interest, but I candidly confess that most of them have little to say,” said M. Zlatko Balokovic, the Croatian violinist, in an interview. M. Balokovic reached Wellington on Tuesday morning in his yacht Northern Light from Brisbane. The visiting musician received his early schooling with the violin from Professor Huml, and later studied in Vienna under Sevcik. While

under the latter master from 1911 to 1913 he won the Austrian State prize, and was prominent in the Vienna Academy of Music. Since the war Balokovic has played in most of the European capitals. Referring to modern music and the composers, Balokovic said: “ Stravinsky is perhaps the most vital and revolutionary of them all. He is fertile in idea, and has ap exalted imagination. His ‘ Oedipus Rex ’ is a phenomenal work, with all the stimulating qualities, depth, and dignity of a Greek tragedy. Scriabine died too young. I think he would have done great things had he lived. Rachmaninoff, who is still living, is old-fashioned, although interesting, but he is not of the young revolutionary school which ‘ sees things.’ Prokofrieff is one of the most arresting of the new Russian school. He has written some fine ballads. Of the composers for the pianoforte and violin perhaps the most promising is Szymanowsky. He is by far the most gifted Polish composer of the day, and has turned out some intriguing caprices, some on Paganini themes, but all showing a new quality. His 4 la Fontaine D’Arethusa ’ is a most engaging work for the piano and violin.” M. Balokovic carries with him two 44 Strad ” violins, which he values at £16,000. One is the famous 44 Ernst Strad ” sold by Ernst’s widow. David Lawrie, the violin dealer, had it for some time. He sold it to Lady Halle, and when she died it was purchased by a wealthy man in Munich, from whom Balokovic obtained it at a great price. Composers and Critics. He who damns contemporary creative music shoulders a grave responsibility, writes Dame Ethel Smyth in 44 The New Statesman.” Books, pictures . can be studied first hand by Anyone; even a play can look to a run during which early impressions may be reversed. But consider the case of a new large-scale choral composition. ‘ Even if it is printed, how many people ] are capable of playing and judging a j

work it has taken a conductor and his chorus months to prepare, on the publishing and launching of which vast sums have been spent and which hasty and unfair criticism may drive off the field for years? Again, if worth anything, music is individual and here let me once more quote a profound remark of Sir Fitzjames Stephen: 44 Originality,” he says, 44 does not consist in saying what no one has said before, but in saying exactly what you think yourself.” Now, originality is always disconcerting, for which reason the first judgments of a serious musician, who also has possible executive shortcomings in mind, will probably be tentative. But critics are paid tq hand in that very night hasty impressions that the public takes for a considered, expert verdict: which is why Brahms classed musical criticism among the 44 dishonest trades.”

A critic overwhelmed by admiration may, I think, proclaim his. faith. To appreciate demands far rarer qualities than to pick holes; and if on further hearing the glamour of the work dwindles, what harm is done, even to the critic himself? Who remembers what a man said six months ago? But it is monstrous that a work, the great merit of which is, perhaps, that it comes from the deep places of the soul and needs some knowing, may be sneered, pro tern, out of existence by unfortunates on whom harsh circumstance has imposed a career in which 44 enthusiasm for the rare and first rate ” ebbs and a tendency 44 to overpraise the clever, imitative, essentially commonplace ” is a habit. On the last page of 44 Missa Solemnis,” Beethoven wrote: 44 It came from the heart, may it reach other hearts”: and I aver that the response of a serious audience to a new serious work is an art event of first importance. The fact that a paragraph which would be powerless to kill a book or paint out a picture can, as I said, silence music for decades is bad enough and should, one imagine, make men chary of lightly uttering ha**sh judgments; but in no case are they entitled to hush up the fact that on a given occasion two thousand people apparently disagreed with their slighting verdict. Broadsides of Applause.

Broadsides of applause have been greeting the Ernest Rolls experiment at Sydney St James of Vaudeville. Long Tack Sam and his troupe; Janette Gilmore (the golden-haired, petite American whose death a few months ago was 44 grossly exaggerated”), Jack Haines (ex-middle-weight boxing champion of Australia), and Wally Hancock (ex-welter-weight), A 1 Mack’s Tie-cum-handkerchief turn, Sydney Male Choir, Len Rich, Golden Spartans, the Karrells, the Aero Four, the Maggie Foster Trio, Charles Megan and Fred Bluett, father of Gus, all receive tumultuous receptions nightly. Sweet Nell’s Bangle. The late Nellie Stewart’s famous bangle, made out of twenty-five sovereigns presented to her by the iate George Musgrove, will, with the sanction of the trustees of the actress s will, go to her daughter, Nancye Lynton, wife of the well-known actor, Mayne Lynton, and better known as Nancy Stewart. Back Again. Back again in Sydney with band playing and silver trappings—vaudeville, reminiscent of the days of knock-about comedians, ground and lofty tumblers, patter artists and loose-limbed dancers, says the Sydne}' 44 Referee.” And the two-a-day show will take root again if the standard of the opening night at Sydney Royal is maintained by Tivoli celebrity vaudeville. Old-timers, big timers, small timers, all were there, doing their best, and a capacity audience cheered ’em to the echo. After the 44 voice from the tin can ” and “ the shadow of the fat comedian cavorting,’ the real 44 acts ” in the flesh were like fizz and a fat cigar to a man with the 44 hump.” Here’s long life and many pay-days to the return of the old regime.

Has Stirred Britain. Arthur Bliss, modernist composer, has stirred Great Britain with his latest work, 44 Morning Heroes ”. This is a war symphony, for chorus, orchestra and orator, and has been played in London and broadcast. Bliss was born in England of American parents. His latest work is an attempt to focus human emotions aroused by war into one vast expression. It has five movements, settings of famous war prose and poetry, including passages of the 44 Iliad ” of Walt Whitman and of British writers discussing the Great War. 44 My Lady’s Dress.” 44 My Lady’s Dress ”, revived in Sydney by a J. C. Williamson, Ltd., company headed by Frank Harvey and Iris Darbvshire, has repeated the success it achieved previously when Emelie Polini appeared in it and added to her wonderful popularity. 44 My Lady’s Dress ” is in three acts of nine quick scenes, and in comedy and drama we see incidents associated with the various phases of the making of a fashionable woman’s gown. The author is Edward Knoblock, who scored another success with ‘‘Milestones”. After the season in Sydney, 44 My Lady’s Dress ” will be seen in the other States. Uncomplimentary Portraits. Roderic Mueller Guttenbrunn, Austrian litterateur, languished in gaol in Vienna because Mme. Jeritza, the prima donna, detected in highly uncom-

plimentary portraits of a prima donna and her husband in his book, ** RiffRalT ”, lampoons on herself and her husband, Baron Popper. Guttenbrunn denied that the New York Metropolitan

soprano and her noble husband had furnished him inspiration, but the Court agreed with witnesses who expressed the belief that he had been inspired by them, and by right good malice.