THEATRICAL TOPICS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19846, 21 May 1927, Page 15 (Supplement)

THEATRICAL TOPICS

THE GREEN ROOM MIME AND MUMMER PARS (By “Upstage Angus.”) Maurice Moscovitch has now quite recovered from his recent illness, and is appearing at Melbourne in “The Ringer,” an unusual play by Edgar Wallace. ❖ * * * Judith Anderson is also in Melbourne playing Iris March, the celebrated lady of Michael Arlen’s “Green Hat.” * * ❖ * It now seems reasonably certain that Katherine Cornell will act Maugham’s “The Letter” next season, although it is not settled at the moment. The play is controlled for America by Messmore Kendall, a lawyer who found himself drifting into the motion picture business some years ago, and who now owns much of the Capitol Theatre, and produces an occasional play. Mr. Kendall is now on the ocean, bound for New York, and when he gets there the Cornall-“ Letter” negotiations are likely to be closed. * * * * Fay Marbo, the American actress who was awarded £3,100 damages against Daly’s Theatre because they engaged her for a part that they did not let her play, will appear shortly in “Oh. Joan, Behave!”

Sybil Thorndike, who recently produced “Macbeth” in London has rejected the offer of the Daniel Mayer Company to present her in “The Silver Cord,” in New York.

Another play of grim features is “The Summons,” written by Margaret Peterson, a popular novelist. It is the story of a husband who murders his wife, and of the half-caste brother of the murdered woman, who, suspected of the crime, commits suicide. The husband, driven frantic by the ghost of the murdered woman, eventually confesses.

London suburbs and the people who live in them seem to have excited the ire of the young playwrights. Elizabeth Baker, with “Bert’s Girl,” represents suburbia as a collection of cads and vulgarians, and uses its people to point a sermon on eugenics. # * ❖ ❖ London, which has not nearly the number of theatres that there are in New York, is to have a new £20,000 house near Piccadilly Circus for musical plays. Edward Laurillard will build it and it will be ready to open in December. It will have a seating capacity of ’ 440 and every scat will be reserved, hich is not the way it customarily is over here. Arthur Bourchier is the latest recruit to the large number of prominent actors and actresses who have discovered that South Africa is something of a theatrical gold-mine. He sailed on February 18, taking with him “Treasure Island,” “At the Villa Rose.” “The Fake,” “The Crimson Alibi,” and “Interference.” The tour will last two years. Seymour Hicks is calling his latest adaptation from the French —a comedy, neecUess to say—“ Mr. What’s-his name.” The new piece was produced at the Prince of Wales’, Birmingham, early in March. Jeanne de Casalis is Mr. Hicks’ leading lady, and with her will be Margaret Yarde, Malcom Keen, and the veteran actor, C. W. Somerset, who is now yearly eighty. The next production at the London Winter Garden will most probably be “The Vagabond King,” a musical play adapted from Justin Huntley McCarthy’s play, “If 1 Were King.” The music is by Rudolf Friml, the composer of “Rose Marie.” The cast —a large one—is to be entirely English.

One of the most interesting of the March productions in London was the appearance of Pauline Frederick at the Lyceum, in the stage version of her most famous film. “Madame ?<.” This celebrated film actress is reported to have made a big American success in the play, which had a long run.