MUSIC AND DRAMA.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIX, Issue IV, 26 July 1902, Page 233

MUSIC AND DRAMA.

A few years ago, when our theatres were frequently closed for a couple of months or so at a time, nobody thought much of it. Now, however, “appetite has so grown on that it feeds on” that the almost simultane.ous shutting up of the chief theatres throughout the colony is causing quite a wail of sorrow in the principal cities. Ping-pong and predecessors in the matter of indoor amusements, notwithstanding the taste for theatrical and variety entertainments, has grown apace during the last decade, and a fair proportion of the population feel as if something had been missed out unless they go to a theatre or something similar at least once, and perhaps twice, a week. There seems, too, a considerable amount more money available for amusements nowadays than there used to be. The dress circle twelve years ago in Auckland was a frosty desert, even when good companies were here, and it was much the same in other cities. Now even a very mediocre company seems able to fill a house upstairs as well as down, and when a really effective show comes along you have to hustle if you want a decent place.

The Eden and Epsom Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club hold their Dramatie Entertainment to-morrow evening in St. Sepulchre’s Parish Hall. If the performance is as good as last year’s it will be well worth seeing. Hi. Coates, as before, is the organiser.

"Wirth’s Circus, in Auckland, have found “Cinderella” such a prodigious “draw” that they have kept it on the bill for another week. It is really a capital show for children, and the youngsters enjoy it amazingly. On Saturday last there must have been 2000 children at the matinee, and the eight of their happy excited faces was good enough amusement and pleasure for any "grown up” to enjoy' who could remember his or her own youth.

Mrs “Dot” Boucicault (nee Irene Vanborough), who came out to New Zealand with Toole, and scored heavily with him in “The Don,” is to make iher '.re-appearance on the London stage after a temporary retirement, due to domestic happenings resultant on her marriage. Miss Vanbnrough is'one of the very best young English artists, and an exceedingly charming woman. No doubt she will also revive her triumph as Sophy Fnlgarney In “Lord Quex," which set the seal on her fame as an actress.

May Beatty is fairly booming on the other side, and has been lengthily’ interviewed by Melbourne “Table Talk.” There is nothing new to most New Zealanders in what she has to sayt nothing fresh to us even in the utter absence of side, which seems to have-amazed the Melbourne scribe, to whom “Our May” talked as frankly and unaffectedly as she would to any of’ “her boys” in any of the Nev.’ Zealand towns, where, publicly and privately’, she is such a favourite. For instance, the interviewer spoke of education. “Education? Well I have had practically none, except that which I gained in the two hours of an afternoon while with Mr Pollard —that is, when I attended his school. Then I was away from the opera company for a year, and was at a convent school during that time. This is . the extent of my education,- but I think travelling about as I have for years is an education in. itself. Everyone here in New Zealand will rejoice that Miss Beatty has struck oil, and will wish her further success In the future.