STAGE REALISM

Waipa Post, Volume 36, Issue 2145, 17 April 1928, Page 7

STAGE REALISM

Mr Walter Sondes, who takes the part of a drunken man in the play, "Tin Gods," at the Garrick Theatre, was nearly banged during the play last night (reported the London Daily Mail on 7th February). The final scene is on an island in the East, where a Chinese pirate is about to hang an Englishman, who is one of a party whiich has been taken off a captured ship. Mr Sondes, as the drunken Englishman, is placed on the scaffold; his neck is fixed in a wooden collar, and his hands are tied by ropes. The pirate takes blocks of stone away from his feet until he is left hanging in the air.

Owing to a defect in the gear Mr Sondes was more effectively " hanged " last night than he was expected to be. When he was re-leased he collapsed backward on the steps of the scaffold. The audience thought it was part of the play, but Miss Ivy des Voeux and Mr Eliot Makeham on the stage realised that something had gone wrong and carried Mr Sondes off. A few minutes later the final curtain fell, but immediately afterwards the stage manager came in front and asked if a doctor was in the audience. A doctor was in the stalls, and went round to Mr Sondes' dressing room. He stayed with him for half an hour, and gave orders that Mr Sondes .'should be left lying still for an hour. The stage manager told a pressman that apparently Mr Sondes was actually strung in the air for a minute, whereas he is supposed to have his feet touching the floor. The wooden collar pressed against his windpipe, and apparently nearly throttled him. During the hanging scene British anroplanes are supposed to be bombing the island, and the noise of the falling bombs drowned any cries that Mr Sondes may have uttered.