MUSIC AND DRAMA.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 2, 12 January 1907, Page 36

MUSIC AND DRAMA.

“Mrs. Gorringe's Necklace,” one of the new plays the Brough-Flemming Company are producing on their 1907 New Zealand tour, passes an evening very’ pleasantly. To >ay that it does not approach in excellence “Dr. Wake’s Patient” would be no severe criticism, since the superlative quality' of that most capital comedy is not to be met with every season. “Mrs. Necklace*’ is a somewhat patchy play’. In several places it rises to quite the highest level of “high comedy,’’ in others it sinks to frank melodrama. But its characters are well drawn, and might indeed, in the case of the heroine and. the thief, be made much more of. Mr. Flemming, as a Captain Mowbray, again demonstrates what a sterling actor he is, and Mrs. Brough again scores heavily in the part of a heartless, shallow, yet amusing woman of the smart set. That gem of delicate comedies, “Quality* Street,” is to be played in Auckland on Wednesday’ afternoon and evening, a it'd the concluding performances are: Thursday and Friday, “The Walls of Jericho”; Saturday, “The Village Priest*’ (by Sydney Grundy); ami on Monday, last night of the season, “The Passport," preceded by' “In Honour Bound.” & Whilst in Sydney they are having a mystery-play, which takes the form of “Parsifal,” in Paris a new religious drama, by Catulle Mendes entitled “J.a Vierge d'Avila’’ has been produced at the Theatre Sarah Bernhardt (November ]]). The virgin referred to is Saint Therese, who. in the time of Philip 11. of Spain, stemmed the tide of horrors wrought by the Inquisition in old Castile, winning men’s hearts to mercy’ and toleration by an influence due to the attractive mysticism of her character. The Paris papers declare that Mme. Bernhardt has made a truly* marvellous study of Saint Therese, which, when its mere sweetness is replaced by mental and spiritual ecstasy, must resemble Jeanne d’Arc. In Sydney this quality’ roused out amlicmes to a pitch of frantic enthusiasm at several points which occurred in the course of a rather dull, qua si-historical drama. The Bernhardt, with her sapphire eyes aflame, reciting “Je connais mon pays,’’ made an indelible impression. It is in the fourth act of the new piece, when the bigoted King is being inspired by his clerical advisers to further ferocity, that Saint Therese sweeps into the Ksctirial with her train of gentle nuns, and presents the monarch with a bunch of fre-h-gathered fieldflowers. “All that soft grace for which Sarah Bernhardt has ever l»een adored/* writes a French critic, “is brought into play when she tells the King, in language as tweet at that of Perdita, what

the Buffers mean. Her voice, though quite low, is so perfectly modulated as to carry all over the theatre like strokes from a silver bell. But even more effective is the silent victory she wins over the King for the signing of a release for the Inquisition prisoners. Her ey6s, her whole body, radiate persuasion as she urges him to sign, and feels him sway to her - will and away from it. Finally, when she has conquered, she makes one soft movement of pleasure which is a positive inspiration of all that is charming.” It is good to read such a poetically appreciative review of a great Artist whose circumstances are believed to require a big financial coup. The diva's last great production, “La Sorciere,” though played also in London and throughout the United States, did not prove a money-maker. An Australian caricaturist, who travelled a few hundred miles on the Bernhardt “special” early this year, reported her weary, and in low spirits, and it was openly stated by artists in her company that a really “booming” success was needed. Perhaps it has been found in Mendes’ mystical play, “La Vierge d’Avila.” d* v* “Mizpah.” the poetical play founded on the Hebraic narrative o Esther,f by Ella Wheeler Wilcox and Luseombe Searelle. shortly to be produced in London. has appealed very strongly to the Jewish community in America. Congregations at the synagogues have been urged from the pulpit to witness the play, which they were assured was almost the only drama produced on the English-speaking stage which portrayed the true dignity of the race, instead of holding it up to seoru and ridicule. At the first performance of the drama in New York, at the elose, of a speech were Alordecai, invoking Jehovah’s aid to succour his persecuted race, a tall distinguished looking Jew rose from the stalls and thundered out, “Semi that message to Russia.” J* JU Says the “Critic”: —“The many admirers of Mr. Charles Waldron, ‘The Squaw Man,’ will be surprised to hear of his engagement to a Sydney girl—Miss King, of Potts Point. His friend, Mr. Keegan, is engaged to her sister. The marriages, I believe, take place at Easter. That the ladies consider them too fascinating to be trusted out of their sight is proved by the fact that Cue boat which carried ‘The Squaw Man’ Co. to New Zealand numbered among its passengers the Misses King with a chaperon, to warn all Maori ladies off engaged property. Whether Mr. Waldron will quit the boards after marriage is unknown. , Mr. Owen Hall's scheme of turning himself into a public company was the. topic of the week when the last mail left. The capital of “Owen Hall, Ltd.,'” is only £12.000. The company is not formed for the production of Mr. Hall’s own pieces exclusively, though of course the primarv object of the people who are finding the money is to run his musical plays. He hopes to start about February at a London theatre, with a farcical comedy with music, called “King Silly'.” The directors are Mr. Cecil Raleigh. Prince Victor Dhuleep Singh, Sir James Home. Sir Theodore Brinckmann, and Mr. Hall himself. J* Mr. Hall’s shareholders will only be doing openly what has been done in private for years past in the case of leading actors. The system of “backing” has notoriously’ worked well for certain (capitalists. Of course, there is an acknowledged amount of risk in investing one’s money in a mere mortal; but Mr. Hall is still young, and his death by infectious disease or accident could be insured against. Uncertainty is an element of all speculation, and with such

great possibilities of profit, and capital so moderate, the venture is certainly not bolder than many which have been eagerly supported by the publie. Mr. Hall, otherwise Mr. James Davis, practised as a solicitor from 1874 to 188<5, and contested Dundalk in the Conserva* tive interest in 1880 against the late Sir Charles Russell. The list of his librettos ineludes “A Gaiety Girl,” “An Arfist’s Model,” “The Geisha,” “A Greek Slave,” “Floradora,” “The Silver Slipper.” lh<* Girl from Kay’s,” and “The Medal and the Maid.” We may hope that with a free hand and without trammels in the way' of artists or otherwise Mr. Hall will do for “Owen Hall, Limited.” some of his very best work. Bernard Shaw’s new tragedy, “A Doetor’s Dilemma,” was produced at the Court Theatre, London, during the third week in November, and lias proved the exciting cause of much clever criticism, expressing widely divergent opinions. At one time, long after readers of the published plays had satisfied themselves that several of his pieeesi would net, English manager's looked askance at anything with this author's name to it. The first success, “Candida,” was due to enterprise in New York. In that city, during the past few weeks,Mr 11. B. Irving has won acceptance for “Ceasar and Cleopatra,” another of the series unknown in London. There the Shaw plays hav been rather extensively “matineeil.” and “John Bull and His Island.” “Man and Superman,” and “Major Barba .-a” have all been brought forward recently. The new play is more, discursive than any of its predecessors, so that the physician who remarks, “I’ve lost the thread of my remarks. What was I talking about?” epitomises the faults of “The Doctor’s Dilemma.” The satire on the medical profession was anticipated by, Moliere originally, and recently’ in Paris by Brieux in “L’Evasion.” The plot deals with half a dozen types of medical men, from the Court physician, a platitudinously pompous bungler, tc the hard-working East-end “g. p.” who begs fashionable consultants for their castoff frock eoats! This bevy of doctors careers through the play like the wedding guests in “Le Chapea-i de Paille d’ Italie.” generally’ meeting at the. bedside of Louis Dubedat (Mr Grnnvir.a Barker), wit. genius, painter, reprobate, gambler, ami blackmailer. He dies on the breast of his beautiful wife. Jennifer (Miss Lillah McCarthy), uttering his artist's eredo, “I believe in Michael Angelo, and Rembrandt, and Velasquez, and the Message of Art.’’ Some clitics admire the originality of the scene, others denounce it as “bad taste” in its punctuation of solemnity’ by jokes, and “cheap art” in its employ ment of such a fact as death (realistic, not poetised death) to secure an emotional thrill. J* JS Air Bernard Shaw, by the way. writes to point out an error into which the eritie of a d’aily paper has fallen in substituting for the Duberdat's words in “The Doctor's Dilemma,” “I believe in Michael Angelo, A'elasquez. and Rembrandt” the phrase ’Velasquez, the father of Whistler,” “This creed,” says Air Shaw, “Was openly borrowed with gratitude and admiration by’ me from Richard Wagner’s well-known story, Bated 1841. and translated under the title, ‘An End in Paris,’ by Air Ashton Ellis, in which the dying musician cries, ‘1 believe in God, Mozart and Beethoven.’” And were not Turner's last words “The Sun is God”? It should ;be noticed, however, that Air Shaw’s Duberdat leaves the Deity out entirely.