Music and Drama

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLI, Issue 2, 8 July 1908, Page 16

Music and Drama

A notable theatrical event will be the Return of Mr. H. R. Roberta, the distinguished New Zealand actor to Auckland en July 14th, on which date he will appear in “The Prince Chap,” the play jwhich made him famous in London. It is nine years since Mr. Roberta left this Country, and during his career abroad he has won a measure of success which has been unexcelled by any other colonial actor. Mr. Roberts has been appearing in the Southern centres in “The Prince jDhap” with extraordinary success, and in each of the leading cities he has been accorded a civic welcome. At Dunedin, his native town, the Mayor of the city convened a special meeting of the Council Ithe morning following the performance, Mnd in the presence of a large number of leading citizens he proclaimed the city’s pride in Mr. Roberts, and the merits of >the play in which he had won his name. JX JX Mr. Harry Rickard’s “All Star Company,” which is now showing at His Majesty’s, Auckland, well deserves its name, and the theatre has been crowded nightly with appreciative audiences. The Klos Sisters give on» of the most remarkable turns we Ttwve ever seen in 'Auckland, and their act alone would be a sufficient draw for one Company, but Mr. Rickards believes in a strong bill, and he has sent round two other turns (which make the combination the most brilliant that has toured New Zealand. The Brothers Artois make their clever gymnastic performance on triple horizontal bars one to be remembered, and the (other great attraction of the Company, the Miles-Stavordale Quintette, are easily the first of the many trick instrumentalists who have been along this way. His Majesty’s is a decidedly pleasant place to spend an evening just now, and one is not only amused, but entertained in a manner which is most novel. JX “The Thief,” with which Miss Margaret Anglin made a successful Sydney debut is a powerful modern drama adopted from Henry Bernstein’s “Le Woleur.” The plot turns on the efforts of a young married woman to please her much-loved husband. To keep his affections she dresses well—but above her means—and when money is not forthcoming she yields to temptation and misappropriates it from her host, a friend of her husband. The blame is made to fall ©n the son of the host, who admits the crime because of his hopeless love for the wife of his father’s friend. Then in ithe famous “bed-room” scene the husband’s eyes are opened to the real truth and in a scene of almost tragic intensity |the young wife confesses her fault. In London, George Alexander and Irene (Vanbrugh made a great success with the piece at the St. James’, and this was repeated in New York with Kyrle Bellew in the husband part. I forget who was jthe thief in the latter production. A revival was commenced in New York last month. JX 'At the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, on the stage were fixed steel rails, on which the railway train of the last scene of “The Flood Tide” ran. One of the artists, in a fit of absent-mindedness, nearly fell in consequence of catching his foot in them; then the chartered liberiine of the company, who observed the little contretemps, said: “Not the first time an actor has forgotten the lines; We must call a rehearsal!” r M. Claretie, manager of the Comedie Francaise, has been ordered by the Paris Civil Court to resume rehearsals of the play “Foyer,” or pay a fine of £4 for each day’s delay in doing so. He had agreed to stage the play, the author alleged, but had afterwards withdrawn it. JX jX Meynell and Gunn arc said to have made £ 10,000 out of “The Fatal Wcd-

A Rickards company, headed by Cinquevalli, will tour New Zealand early next year. J»

“The taste of the theatrical public in Australia lies in the direction of comedy, and you cannot give them too much of it; comedy and melodrama, indeed, are the stable entertainments in the legitimate houses.”—Harry Rickards. JX JX A laughable unrehearsed incident, for which the theatre cat—a big black one, which has lost half its tail—was responsible, occurred, says the “Evening News,” at the Kennington one night this week during the performance of “His House in Order.” At the dramatic moment when Hilary Jesson and Nina were reading the compromising letters found in Annabel’s boudoir, Tom jumped from the auditorium on to the stage, and, plumping himself down before the actor and actress, stared solemnly at them. The latter managed to keep straight faces, but the audience was convulsed. The limelight operator made his machine hiss loudly, but the cat only turned on him an indignant gaze and refused to budge. The merriment was increased when, at the most moving part of the scene, Tom lifted his paw and passed it over his eyes. To the delight of the audience, he sat out the scene, and at the finish turned and nimbly sprang back into the auditorium. \iX Mr. Edmund Sherras, of “The Prince of Pilsen” Company, says his most amusing stage experience happened in Dublin. The piece was “The Belle of New York,” and he was singing with a favourite actress, “Teach me how to kiss.” The latter had just sung the line “Teach me how to sit upon your sympathetic knee,” W'hen the lights went out. The audience remained perfectly quiet, but somebody in the stalls called out, “I must have a look at this,” and struck a match. The house so roared with laughter that the stage manager continued the effect nightly. J* Jt. ’ . j During a very bad performance of “Hamlet,” the audience in its entirety commenced to hiss with the exception of one man. At last the man next to him said: “Why don’t you hiss this show?” “It wouldn’t hardly be fair, sir,” he said, “as I came in on a complimentary; but if they don’t do better pretty soon, bothered if I don’t go out and buy a ticket and join you.” jx yh Miss Marie Lohr, daughter of the once well-known manager, has reached the top of the tree in London. She is engaged a sthe Marguerite iff the autumn production of “Faust” by Beerbohm Tree, at His Majesty’s. JX JX; While England is agitating for abolishment of the stage censor, Paris is clamoring for the re-establishment of that institution. The latter crusade is based on the charge that recklessness of language, idea, and situation has become so rampant there that a woman’s letter in a leading newspaper proposes boycotting those playhouses where such license is permitted. 'JX JX One of Mr Edwin Geach’s Dramatic Companies is to tour New Zealand at Christinas. “Lured to London” will be the chief piece in the company’s repertoire. Miss Ethel Buckley, whose last visit to New Zealand was with George Rignold, eleven years ago, will be a member of the company. JX JX In the competition to name the new theatre in Melbourne one Australian wrote “The Boomerang” because, as ho explained, anyone seeing an Audcrson-

ian production is bound to come back. More than one letter like this reached Mr Anderson:—“Call it ‘The Empire." Send the five guineas to , because I need it bad. As The “King’s” had been excluded from the competition, aa originally favoured by the proprietor, none of the competitors received the five guineas, which went to a children’s hospital. Harry Rickards, now in London, in the course of a chat with an “Era” interviewer, says — “I should very much like to retire at the end of three years, if I could find anyone who would purchase my theatres. You see, lam now sixty years of age, and I have led a pretty active life, so that a little rest for the rest of the years that are spared to me would not come amiss. “During 1907 I made more money than I ever made before in the space of twelve months.” As Rickards has purchased an estate at Margate, it looks as if his wish to retire was not entirely talk. J* J*

THE DRAMA IN

AUSTRALIA A BETTER SCHOOL. MR. G. S. TITHERADGE INTERVIEWED. Frankly delighted to be in Sydney once again, amongst so many friends—whose pleasure at the opportunity of offering him welcome is just as keen as his own •—Mr. George Titheradge, who is to tour with Miss Margaret Anglin, the American actress, landed from the R.M.s. Orient, after an absence of 10 years from Australia. Mr. Titheradge has returned with decided opinions about the present condition of the drama in London. This is a subject which has attracted the attention of many men of judgment; and one of the latest to write about it, Dr. Borsa, has framed a serious indictment against the taste of the British public. Mr. Titheradge finds that there is no opportunity given the young actor to display any originality he may possess, and that the system by which a beginner is told to go in front and study some well-known man in a part, so that he .may reproduce his performance in every detail, merely reduces art to its lowest form, the mimetic. Hence he considers Australia a better dramatic school, for here versatility remains an essential qualification in the actor’s equipment. “I scarcely could have believed such a radical change possible as that which I found to have-occurred on returning to London,” said Mr. Titheradge. “It was simply a capsizing of everything that obtained when I was there previously. Pieces, such as they are, are much better cast than in the old stock days; but, although the public are gainers by that, I think it is purchased at the expence of art. Acting has its specialists as well as any other profession now. Personality is the thing before everything. A man does not try to be other than himself, because it does not pay.” He called to mind one-actor of delightful personality, who gives an admirable performance, but always as himself. “But,” he asked, “if a man specialises, and plays nothing but himself, how does that benefit art?

“All this is largely the fault of the public. They want to see a man or a woman in nothing else but the part in which they like him or her. I witnessed a magnificent bit of all-round acting not long ago in London, on the part of a prominent man; it was, indeed, the finest acting I had seen for 30 years, but it did not draw, for the simple reason that it was an artistic study in character, and not the part in which London audiences are accustomed to see this actor. Do you think art can exist long under these circumstances’ How is the novice to get his experience? Let us suppose that a man who has had four or five years’ experience under the present conditions of the stage in London comes out here, you can see at once what a differ-, ence he finds. THE BEST DRAMATIC SCHOOL. “Australia is really the only school,” he declared. “A young man cannot get experience in London. Under the present system, an actor must wait until a piece is written containing a part for

which he is fitted. Hence he may havi to wait for a year or more, and that is why I say a man must be pretty well off to be able to call himself a London actor and nothing else. All the old successes in plays have been non-star pieces, with five or six good characters; but things are altered now. The ‘star’ system is becoming almost as bad in London as it is in America. Accordingly, if young members of the profession get outside the groove in which they are accustomed to exercise their abilities, one finds at once how lamentably at sea they are.” “Then do you think a dramatic school is required?”

“No; I do not think much of the dramatic school. The only school is that of experience. I do not think acting can be taught. Certainly you can teach a certain amount of mechanism in a dramatic school. You can show a man how to walk, how to handle a sword, and what to avoid; but you cannot make him an actor. You cannot give him the sense of drama if he has not got it. You can smooth the rough edges, but that is about all.”

“WHAT IS THE THEATRE BUILT FOR?”

Then emotion is discouraged nowadays, Mr Titheradge pointed out. “The majority of pieces produced at the West End of London are pieces with dukes or, earls in them—nothing short of a baronet, of course. In that society it is considered bad form to exhibit any emotion. A man living in that atmosphere comes into the theatre and sees his own life exemplified—what is there to interest him in that? He sees a lot of im-maculately-dresed people in a very handsome scene, and hears them talking a few sentences —and it is all so dull! When I was a boy, the actors, the tragedians, used to lift people out of their seats; but there is nothing like that nowadays. People say now that anything of that kind is theatrical; but what is the theatre built for? This is why people are being driven to the music-halls in London just now. The people who go to the theatre want to be taken out of themselves; and my view is that what they want in London; as here,, is strong drama, not necessarily treated melodramatically. In the old days the dramatists did not confine themselves to ordinary pieces about people in society.”

As to America, the circumstances are not quite similar to those in London. “There is no one centre in the United States, as in London. On the contrary, there are several centres, and one never remains in any of them long. A play does not run without interruption for a year in America, and there the money is made on the road, whereas in England it is made, not on the road, but in London. Again, in America audiences like to see a man in some special act, and for the sake of that will put up with the most ordinary piece. London playgoers are very loyal to, those who have grown up with them, and will continue to believe in them long after they have done their best work; but of newcomers, on the other hand, they are very critical.” -—“Sydney Telegraph.”

The First Sea Lord, popularly known as •‘.larky Fisher." with whom Lord Charles Ihto>rord declined to shake hands at the King's Levee last week. \D\I 111 \LS AT \ ARI AM E. Sir John Fisher dud Lord l Charles Beresford are men of such eminence and distinction, and their personal conduct is so closely involved in I he performance of public duties of such inestimable importance to tin* nation and the Empire, that the significance of the unpleasant little scene which took place at the recent Royal levee is not likely to be ignored at Home. I nfort nnately. this is b\ no moans the first occasion on which the First Sea Lord and the commander of the Channel squadron hasve displayed

personal animosity toward each other. Lord Charles Beresford owes a great deal to his rival, for it was on Sir John Fisher’s recommendation that Beresford got “the chance of his lifetime” at Alexandria during the Arabi Pasha rebellion. But since Sir John Fisher has been at the head of the Admiralty, he certainly seems to have evinced a very decided prejudice against Beresford. For years past, it is not too much to say, the navy has been divided into two factions, one

supporting Beresford, the other Fisher; and the jealousies and rivalries that have thus arisen have caused a great deal of anxiety to those chiefly responsible for the efficient state of England’s first line of defence. Sir Percy Scott, whose ill-timed signal to the fleet brought him into direct conflict with Beresford last year, is a devoted adherent of Fisher: and the conflict between the two parties is sufficient to account not only for Beresford’s quarrel with Scott, but for most of the difficulties that have arisen during the last two years over the

organisation and disposition of the British navy. It is generally admitted even by the critics who support Lord Charles Beresford in this controversy that Sir John Fisher is a man of unusual ability, and that he has done a great deal to improve the Navy. Sir John Fisher is admittedly a strong man. and his natural self-eonfidence may to some extent account for his determination to wield power alone. But

it cannot justify him in pursuing a course that ha> induced the •‘National Review” to accuse him of ‘’treating the Navy as his pocket preserve, promoting his favourites and sycophants, and harassing all independent officers who do not happen to belong to what has been elegantly

termed the ‘Fish pond.’ ” These views arc by no means limited to one journal or one political party. A naval officer last year defied the service regulations, and wrote to the “Standard” complaining bitterly that under Sir John Fisher a system of espionage has grown up in the navy that is undermining the confidence of both officers and men, and is

robbing the service of some of its most loyal members. “Officers are reported upon privately and unofficially at Whitehall. Any criticism among ourselves of \ iniralty policy is whispered, and not openly discussed as in the old days. Good men want to get out of the service as quickly as possible, and soon, if his dictatorship lasts long enough, the First Sea Lord will be able to surround himself with an impenetrable ring of his own supporters.” Our readers will observe that the complaints against the First Sea Lord take partly a personal and partly a professional form. According to the •’National Review." Sir .John Fisher has done

good work in his time, but he has grown altogether ‘‘too big for his boots.” “He has become dazzled and demoralized by social success. His vanity has developed to such a pitch that he imagines his ’ipse dixit’ is sufficient to blow every foreign fleet out of the water. He has fawned on the great and has ingratiated himself with the politicians of both parties by anticipating their craving for cheese-paring while he bamboozles his journalistic dupes by a judicious mixture ■of swagger ami flattery.” Coarse and offensive as this outburst is, it shows how strongly public feeling has been loused at Home on either side of this controversy.

Memorial Pulpit presentedi to St. Paul's Pro-Cathedral, Wellington, by Mrs. Seddon, in memory of the lath Premier. The pulpit is made of British Oak. and was carved by Messrs. Wippell and Co., of London and Exeter. The four figures represent SS. Paul. Barnabas. Peter, an L Mark. An elaborate polished brass desk suimounts the cornice.

I lie ages of these three hale old men aggregate no less than 254 years, which must surely be a record for the Dominion. They live at New Plymouth, ami reading from left to right their names are Thomas Sole, aged 80, .James Sole 88. ami David Sole 80. All throe are still able to do a lift It* gardening, and in fact two of them left oil’ work to sit for Mr. J. R. Hanna, who took the photograph. The brothers arrived in the colony on the 7th of November. 1841. Thomas fought in the Maori War. and was in the engagements at Kaihiki, lluirangi, Matarikoriko. Mahoctahe. and Burton's Hill. His brothers did not take part in the lighting, though they were present at Kaihiki. lluirangi, and Burton’s Hill. They were attached to the commissariat department, conveying supplies by means of bullock waggons, which was anything but easy work in those roadless days.

The handsome “Russell” motor van made in Canada, which Messrs. Magnus, Sanderson and Company of Wellington have just supplied to the Postal Department in the capital city, where an experiment is to be made of using electric traction for collecting and delivering mails within the city. The car is driven by a two-cylinder 18 h.p. engine, and the carriage is painted in scarlet enamel with gold lettering.

In a pretty situation in “ Th? Prince Chap,” the charming play with which he opens at Auckland on July 14th, at His Majesty’s.