Music and Drama.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXIII, Issue VI, 6 August 1904, Page 23

Music and Drama.

The news comes from U.S.A, that Wallace Brownlow in “The Beggar Student” is an ideal baritone lover. He has several duet tottles with Dora de Fillippe—wliich is a good, stimulating name for a frisky stage songstress.

Two of the latest English comedy successes, viz., “The Duke"of Killecra’nkie ’ and “His Excellency the Governor,’’ will be produced for the first time hi Australasia during Mr Williamson's present Auckland season. The former goes up on Saturday evening next, and the lai ter on the following Wednesday or Thursday.

‘"Would yon mind keeping that hat on?” “Keep it. on? Why, t was just about to take it off.” "l. know it. But I don't want to see any more of the play than I ean help.”

A second visit to “The Marriage of Kitty” confirms the writer in the opinion expressed last week, that this is one of the pleasantest, brightest, amt most laughable comedies we have had over this side for some considerable time. The opinion was expressed by some that it was very light. Of course, it. is light—what else would you have? The only fault I ean find in the production is the prodigious length of the intervals. The management think it essential, presumably, that the audience should not leave the theatre till ten thirty, for by means of much music between tlie acts they are detained till that hour, though the play could be over easily and with advantage by ten. The argument is that the majority would consider they had not bad money’s wort It if turned out of the theatre by ten, and of course one must allow experienced folk such as Mr Ashton and Mr V incent to know their own business best, but still, one ventures to think they are in this mistaken, ami that, an experiment might be tried. Many people—most people. we- believe--Avonld prefer to get home early. After all. the play’s the thing, not the music, even when good — for a theatre orchestra—as it undoubtedly is in this instance.

“Cousin Kate,” whieh is being played by Mr Williamson's company on Wednesday. Thursday and Friday of this week, is the work of Mr Henry Hubert Davies, who is billed as the latest, youngest and most successful dramatist of the year in England and America. The London ‘‘Playgoer” says:—“ln the author of ‘Cousin Kate,’ London seems to have found the new dramatist for whom it has so long been pining. There hie obvious reasons for the popularity .of Mr Davies’ latest play. Its story, charmingly told, is of the ever-popttlar )ove-at-tlrst-sight ; its characters are well-drawn, and its dialogue is bright, and full of humour. And story, char.-te-ters and dialogue are nil quite simple, so that the audience Iras ho haras-iitg complexities to worry over. Init it is charmed to laughter and sympathy, and into forgetfulness of the cares and struggles of every-day life.’*

Miss Gertie Campion, who has been an invalid in Johannesburg since Sfpxember lust, has left for Durban, ami after a short stay as the guest of Mrs Waite. Berea (a New Zealand la<ty) a she will take ship for her home in Melbourne. Miss Campion is getting strong again, and it is hoped the sea voyage will quite set her up. Miss Kitty Campion returns to Australia with her sister.

Dr. Joachim, the grand old mail of. the world of music, celebrated a few weeks ago the diamond jubilee of his first appearanee in England. The celebration took the form of a reeeptiou at tile Queen's Hall, and the presentation l« Dr. Joachim of a portrait of himself. Il was a memorable night. Tlie Prime Minister attended to make the presentation, and the hall was crowd* I from lloor to veiling.

After the Auckland season, and prior to opening in Wellington. Mr .1. U. Williamson’s Comedy Company have the following country dates arranged:—New Plymouth, Monday and Tuesday. August 15 and 16; Stratford, Wednesday. Atigmt 17; llawera, Thursday, August 18; Wanganui. Friday and Saturday. August 19 and 20; Palmerston North, Motiduy and Tuesday. Augast 22 and 23; Napier. Wednesday and Thursday, August 24 and 25; Mastertoil, Friday. August 26. “The Marriage of Kitty” will b.i played in the one-night towns, and this piece and also “His Excellency the Governor’* where the company appear twice.

Our new theatre, whieh is tv be named His Majesty's, is nearing completion (writes our Gisborne correspondent), and many are the gaieties promised us when it is finished. Mel. B, Spurr, of whom we have heard so much, will open His Alajesty’s on Wednesday, August 17. The first dance to bp, Ijetd in the new building will be the East, Coast Mounted Rifles Ball, to take place about, the end of August. The last a«4 sembly is also to be held there, and there are also to l>e numerous eoncerlSj c,e ‘ .a r

Here is a little story of Albert Chevalier. .His manager saw a num gazilfg doubtfully at the posters outside a provincial hall just before the recital commenced. He ultimately bought a ticket, but, seemed inclined to be very critical. Afterwards the manager saw the same man going away with a particularly pleased and happy countenance. “1 hope you enjoyed Air. Chevalier’s performance?” said the manager. “Yes, yes!” answered the man. with a broad smite. Then, assuming his critical expression—"J’ui I think 1 prefer oratorio.”

Preparations are being made for a revival <>f Shakespeare's ‘Midsummer Nights Dream' at the Royal SphaiispiclHaus. Berlin. It is to be on a new and splendid scale. The royal scene painters and costumiers are biisy preparing for the event, the whole of the decorations having been specially ordered. The east lias not yet been decided upon, but it will be composed of the first members of t he eompanv. His Imperial Majesty—who is never happier than when lie is “blissing the show” at the State theatres—is tak’ i'lg a great personal interest in the revital. | Mr George Grossmith's advice to the people who wish to keep a railway compart luent exclusively for their own me in a crowded train was one of the best things in his last Recital of the season the other day (says a London writer). lie deprecated the liine-lion-oured device of tilling the vacant .seats with bundles of railway rugs, umbrellas. <>r newspapers. His plan was much more ingenious. A tip to the guard secures the locking of (he door, and directly another passenger (usually a disagreeable elderly man with au equally disagreeable wife) begins Io rattle the handle and shout to the porters for a key. “Gee Gee” delibera L-ly folds his handkerchief over his head, jumps tohis feet, assumes theexpre-siou worn by the polite lunatic in Phil Max 's well-know n Dottyville sketches, awl dances wildly in front of the window', shouting, “Come in! come in! lota

ef room! Come in!” We says that this simple plan is inner known to fail. It wouM enable any luan-ivUo would do it with sufficient spirit—to keep a compartment to himself.

The most popular song of the century »o far lias been "Viens poupoule,” which rivals "Ta-ra-rara Boom-de-ay” in its universality. Originally n French ditty, for the last year it has haunted the whole of Europe. At latest dates it was one of the items of the “Empire" programme. It is said to have done more for the "entente cordiale” than all the efforts of politicians. “Viens poupoide” has not vet reached the colon»r*.

Geo. Edvvardes has his finger well in the English theatrical pie. He had running, when the mail left, in London, “The Orchid,” at the Gaiety Theatre; “f.a I’oupce,” at the Prince of Wales; "The Duchess of Dantiz,” at the Lyric; “Verendque,” at the Apollo; and the Empire .Music Hall; and in addition touring companies of each piece, to say nothing of a company in Australia and one in South Africa. Mather a good record this.

In "The Alan From China” is a song entitled "Fifty-seven Different Ways to Win a Alan.” The refrain;

"There are fly ways and my ways} Kiwple ways ami sly ways. Ways that have been practised since the

world began. He would run—but don't you let him! Keep on trying; you get him— There are fifty-seven different ways to win a man.”

It is a very lengthy song, but not a word is said or sung by the vocalist or anybody else throughout the whole of the two acts about the one hundred and six'jeen ways to lose a woman.

The Orient, the great Yiddish theatre that is projected in the East End, will be. open an hour before the performance commences. and every seat will be bookable in advance. The site secured was the property of the London Hospital. The price was £ 10,000, and the total cost of the great Ghetto playhouse is expected to be £OO,OOO. The syndicate which is building it has in the past paid the management of the Standard Theatre. Shoreditch, £BO for a single night’s hire for the production of a Yiddish play, and has been able to do so at a profit. The plans are bow before the County Council.

Now that the piano boom is upon us, the "Critic,” Adelaide, would like to record the strange caseof an instrument in n N.A. hotel parlour. One night a mildly inebriated person with musical tastes grew exasperated with the piano because it Wfiuldn’t sound B natural when he. struck C, and in a frenzy opened the lid and siuote the keys inside with a bottle of whisky. The landlady mopped up the booze, and after she had effectually wiped the clinging whisky away sat down to play something sentimental. She had no sooner struck a note, however, than the blessed instrument commenced playing, "We Won’t Go Home Till Morning,” all on its own. Now, there's a piano for sale, cheap.

Mrs Minnie Maddern Fiske, a cultivated American actress, is thoroughly disgusted with the town of Ann Arbor, with fhe University of Michigan, and with the audience that, greeted her in "lledda tbibler.” She went so far as to order the curtain to be rung down in the middle of the first act because some students itt the gallery were eating peanuts, and she made her manager announce that if peanut-eating during the performance was not stopped, the play w’ould eease altogether. Airs Fiske says the Michigan professors arc io blame for ♦he fact that musical plays will draw full bouses in Ann Arbor, while Ibsen’* dramas attract "an audience that, in itself, i* the greatest humiliation she Ims received in her whole career.”

For lovers of the drama who prefer something deeper than the trivial, frothy plays now so popular, Hie New t’enlury Theatre in London arranges for afternoon performances of good classical plays. The "I lippolyl us” of Euripides, translated by Dr. Gilbert Murray, was the latest piece produced by the. New Century at the Lyric. Dr. Murray’s work is said to be eminently poetical, and the characters were generally well played. Public interest.

however, was only moderate. “Hippolytus” was presented ns a "live” tragedy, Hot in au academic or educational manner, and that the great themes of human subjection to destiny and the impotence of men in the grip of the immortals have not lost their thrilling interest wag made manifest by the intense emotion displayed by the audience. Presented (says "the "Athenaeum’ ) with no remarkable accessories and no noteworthy cast, this Greek play impassions and enthrals.

A German pianist, Herr Max Lutzow, struck Tasmania with a sudden, musical bang the other day. Lutzow may not lie a world-famed man in his profession, but he has some slap-up ideas, and is daily exercising his mind to evolve o. scheme that will abolish tonality. Says Herr -Max: "Music in no key at all is the musie of the future.” A* man with very long hair might understand this, but the. general public doesn’t. Even the midnight cat on the galvanised iron roof must sing in some key or other. Lutzow is a vegetarian, and laments the fact that nuts don’t grow well in the. Fatherland. After his Tasmanian visit he. will proceed to New Guinea and the East, where any sort of nut, from a peanut to a cocoanut, grows wild and unprotected from the enthusiastic vegetarian.

An interesting theatrical suit was settled in London on May 9 (writes a correspondent in the Sydney “Bulletin”). In 1893 .Madame Trebe'lli-Bettini died, leaving her money and jewels to tho Royal Academy of Music. Her daughter—Mdlle. Antoinette Charlotte Alexandria! Zelie Bet Uni, contested the will, but lost the ease, and was ordered to deliver to defendants the jewellery, of which she had taken possession. The defiant damsel fled, however, to South Africa, and has toured that country and Australia ever since. The matter has at last been compromised by the now Mdnie. Dolores paying £lOOO to the R.A.M., and all is peace again. The sweet-throated Dolores has had lucrative offers to sing in England, which sire will now accept.

Mr Beerbobm Tree, in an interview in “Cassell's Magazine,” describes some of the voluminous correspondence which he receives. He says: "A lady connected with the Salvation Army wrote acknowledging my annual contribution to the Self-Denial Fund —’May God reward you, dear Mr Tree; the Salvation Army cannot.’” Another letter explained: "I have four girls from Switzerland home for the holidays. It would be a great treat if they could see ‘The Darling of the Gods.’ But that would be rather expensive. Will you please send us five stalls?” One gentleman called at the stage door and left a note: “Immediate. Bearer awaits reply. Sir, unless you send me down 10/ at once I shall end my sorrows in the river.” Two hours after Mr Tree went into the street. The first person he saw was the would-be suicide dancing a hornpipe outside the stage door. “I thought yon were in the river,” dreamily murmured Mr Tree. "Well, sir, 1 went down to the Embankment, tut when I saw the water my better self conquered! I have come back for the ten shillings.”

It makes us smile now to observe that the g atest offence given by .Sir Henry Irving to his opponents was created by his "mannerisms.” As an old dramatist once said, "No man has ever been a popular favourite in my time unless he was a pronounced mannerist. Charles Kemble was a silver-tone;!, sententious mannerist; Edmund Kean was a stuttering and spasmodic mannerist; Macready and Phelps always grim and growling over their bones: Charles Kean had a chronic eold in the head; Keeley was sleek and sleepy; Buekstone, a chuckler; Hen Webster was always imperfect, and had a Somersetshire dialect; Mathews was a Alephisto in kid gloves and patent boots; and Ryder was a roarer.” The absurdity of attaching so much importance to merely superficial characteristics is obvious to us now; but in the “early seventies” such things were deemed of great, pith and moment. The reform which Henry Irving came to effect was as much in the dramatic criticism of his day as in the conception of character and the mounting of plays. Speaking of the Gaiety Company’s success in Melbourne, the “Australasian” remarks that it Ims opened the

eyes of the men of the Victorian met. tropolis to the latest fashions. and it goes on to say there I* a keen satisfcction in being kept up -to date, even if it is only in waistcoats. Mr E. R. Huntley, Mr Farkoa, and the rest have displayed the "new” vest, a kind of Direetoire affair, terminating its brief double-breasted career in two V-shaped points high above the waistliuc; they have also taught that champagne-col-oured gloves arc “in,” that a purple tie spiked with a pearl-headed pin is the "latest cry,” as the fashion papers say they say in Paris; and that the man of fashion must brilliantine his hair until it is as smooth and glossy as his hat. About the women’s gowns no fresh revelations have been given, but Melbourne women don’t, require hints in that line from anybody.

"I iddle.-Dce-Dee,” which conics to New' Zealand some time soon, is one of those formless, invertebrate entertainments which sometimes pass for musical comedy in the United States. The Australian production was attended by a good deal of laughter and a crowded audience at the Palace Theatre, Sydney, The dialogue by Edgar Smith consisted principally of snippets from "Funny Bits” and anything else of the same kind the appropriatin' could lay hands on, and the music by John Stromberg was similarly hilarious, noisy, and usefully undistinguished. To give “the full sum in the brief narration,” as old Massinger tersely puts it, “Fiddie-Dee-Dee” forms a hustling, bustling, irresponsible piece of nonsense which may prove below the standard of what Australian audiences expect in burlesque, but which is just as likely to "catch on” with the main body of playgoers. The verdict will rest with the public, and not in the least with the. opinion formed of the entertainment by any one critic, whether of the press or otherwise.

“A Woman of Pleasure” is the title of Mr. Anderson’s latest and most sensational melodrama, Which is a big success in Melbourne, and which he intends to send round New Zealand when his company visit us again shortly. According to the "Critic” on the other side, there are almost sufficient sensationalism and incident, crammed into “A Woman of Pleasure” to serve for two dramas, from which assertion it will be gathered that Mr. James Willard has built a very powerful play, with many strong and thrilling situations. The title certainly seems somewhat of a misnomer, for during the action of the drama the heroine sees little pleasure, and much undeserved suffering. Her action in the prologue, of forcing the Earl of Carlingforth to marry her, because she accidentally obtains a hold over him, is reprehensible, and so is her flirtation, some years afterwards, with their treacherous guest, Major Burrows. Still, the studied coldness and aloofness of her husband is partly to blame for this, and when the hour for the elopement arrives she realises how much of her pleasure in Major Burrows’ society is brought about by mere pique, and that she truly loves her husband. She utterly refuses to accompany the Major. How he takes her by force, and uses her note to him as a letter of farewell to the Earl, forms one of the most telling incidents in the play. The action moves to South Africa, where, by the irony of fate, Major Burrows is placed under Lord Carlingforth’s command. Here he proves himself a traitor to his country and his comrades, a man without feeling or honour. He plans to lead his men into an ambush, to kill his commanding officer, and to again secure Lady Carlingforth, who lias escaped from his clutches, and followed her husband to South Africa, in order to prove her innocence. Mufeking besieged is shown, and its brave inhabitants repulse an attack of the Boers, who fail in their attempt, despite Burrows’ treachery. He escapes in a balloon from Mafeking and punishment, taking Lady Carlingforth by force, but killing his servant and tool, Silas Ferritt. The balloon descends on a rocky coast, where the Major is injured, and is nursed by Lady Carlingforth. When the opportunity for rescue offers, he plans to abandon her, takes to the balloon himself, but she, in desperation. Seizes a rope and hangs on. They are rescued by a troiq -hip, upon which are the Earl and his men. The boat takes fire in midocean; the passengers have to take to the boatsj mv«l it seems as if the poor heroine would never get comfortable, but she docs somehow in the last act,

On page 2 of this issue we give a capital portrait of Mr Harold Ashton, known throughout the length and breadth of New Zealand and the Australian < omuioiiwtalUi as t-ading “advance man” for Mr J. C. Williamson’s larger organisations. When that most charming and courteous of avant-cou-riers, Mr “Jack” Lohr, retired from his labours, and settled down in his seaside hotel, where he is doing remarkably well, by the way, it was thought theroi was no one who could possibly step into his shoes, or on whom the mantle of his enormous popularity would descend. But with the opportunity came the man, and Mr Ashton certainly now occupies much the same position with all who are brought into contact with him that was erstwhile achieved by his predecessor. Like Lohr, Ashton has what the Irish call "a way wid him,” and has a faculty for booming his shows, and charming paragraphs out of sub-editors, even on the busiest days, which amounts to positive genius. It is the idea of some that the principal duty of an advance agent is to get hold of pressmen, and' others able to assist in pushing the production he Is interested in, and to fill them up with as much liquid refreshment and as many brightly cerulean stories as can in nature be achieved. There, may have been such days—there may have been days when the average pressman loved beer better than clean linen—but if so, they are in the dim legendary past. Nowadays pressmen and advance agents do their business like other folk in their offices, and the avatat courier is far too busy a man to have time to spend retailing naughty stories aud-setling up drinks. Of all those oil the stage, or even on, he is the business man. He must if needs be be his own bill-sticker, he must be, able to see a great scenic “set” properly set up, he must be able to be as popular with supers, stage-bands, and the hoi-'polloi of theatre, as be is with the smart social set whom he must also be able to meet. In fact, he must be an all-round mas with a vengeance, and something of a marvel. Wherefore in saying that Mr Ashton is now unquestionably the most successful advance agent on colonial rounds, one is paying a higher compliment than falls to most men, and one which is well deserved, as all who know: him will readily admit.