THE PASSING OF VAUDEVILLE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 73, Issue 97, 26 April 1930, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE PASSING OF VAUDEVILLE

NOTED PLAYWRIGHT S OPINION MR OSCAR KAMMERSTEIN AT WELLINGTON. (Special to “Chronicle”). WELLINGTON, April 23. “Vaudeville in the United States is dead. The movies bega*_ it years ago and the talkies have finished it. The theatre is firmly rooted in the large cities but the smaller towns will suffer.”

This is the opinion given by Mr Oscar Kammerstein, millionaire theatrejwner and playwright, who arrived in Wellington on Monday on his way back to the United States after a fly ing visit to Australia. Air HammerBtein is probably the leading writer of musical plays in the United States, his latest success being “Show Boat’’ and “The Desert Song.” What he thinks ol .' ...ay be gauged from i. c ... ... p.e.-ent he is living in Southern ( a i.ornia making talkies himself. His trip to Australia was taken between finishing a picture and editing it, which will be his first task on arrival. Demanc for Talkies. “The talkies are now finding themselves, ,f he said. “There has been some uncertainty about them, but. producers are learning what to do. tor instance, I contemplated many outdoor scenes for jny next film, and am now told by engineers that they can record outdoor scenes better than indoor scenes, whereas previously outdoor work was considered to present great difficulties. The talkies’ troubles have been those of a new medium, but they

will evolve their own form as the silent films did before them. The great range of scene and fluid action is an enormous asset. In making versions of stage plays they will have to abandon the original structure, in many ways and use their own strength to provide alternative methods of developing the production. They would, for instance, foolish if they attempted to tell a story in more than three scenes.” “The Desert Song” Discussing his success, “The Desert Song,’’ Air Kammerstein said: “It all came out of Abdul Krim. You remember when the French were having a lot of trouble with him in Alorocco. 1 conceived the scene as a good setting for a musical play and then began to read books on Alorocco. I found one book which was called ‘An American among the Riffi, which solved for me the problem of a Riff hero, as I learned there that a man had been able to live among the Riffs and be prominent in their life, and yet, it was claimed, pass as one of them. Then I introduced the Jekyll and Hyde idea and the rest was easy.”