Music and Drama

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLII, Issue 26, 30 June 1909, Page 12

Music and Drama

(BY

BAYREUTH.)

BOOKINGS. (Dates Subject to Alteration.) AUCKLAND—HIS MAJESTY’S. June 28 to July 3—Hamilton Dramatic Company. July 5 to July 24—Hamilton Dramatic Company. July 26 to August 7—J. C. Williamson. August 24 to September 7—Hamilton Dramatic Company. THE OPERA HOUSE. In Season —Geach-Mai lowe Pantomime Co., “The Woman Pays.” WELLINGTON.—OPERA HOUSE. In season—Allan Hamilton Company. July 26 to August 13 —Pollard Opera Co. August 16 to 28—G. Musgrove. August 30 to September 12—J. C. Williamson. September 14 to October I—J.1 —J. C. Williamson. October 2 to 16—Allan Hamilton. October 215 to November 13—J. C. Williamson. November 15 to December 9—J. C. Williamson. December 27 to January 16—J. C. Williamson. TOWN HALL. July 4 to 28—West’s Pictures. PALMERSTON NORTH — MUNICIPAL OPERA HOUSE. August 4, s—Allan Hamilton’s Dramatic Co. August 12, 13—J. C. Williamson’s “Jack and Jill” Co. August 27—Mischa Elman’s Concert. Sept. 20, 21—J. C. Williamson’s Julius Knight Co. October 6 and 7—J. C. Williamson. Nov. 1 to 6—Hugh Ward’s Musical Comedy Co. Nov. 20 to 22—J. C. Williamson. Jan. 17, 18—Carter, the Magician. Jan. 20 to 24—J. C. Williamson. Feb. 14, 15—The Scarlet Troubadors, March 28 to 31—Allan Hamilton. May 19, 20—J. C. Williamson. June 8, 9—J. C. Williamson. June 20 to 25—Fred H. Graham’s Musical Comedy Co. June 29, 30—J. C. Williamson. July 1, 2—Meynell and Gunn August 18, 19—J. C. Williamson. Sept. 30—J, C. Williamson. October I—J. C. Williamson. Nov. 1 to s—Allan Hamilton. Nov. 10, 11—J. C. Williamson. The Indecent Stage, THIS week, I want to draw attention to a phase of the stage productions of the day that has

run riot through America, flourished in Australia, and is threatening New Zealand. There are times when it is desirable to be frank on forbidden topics. Just now, the American stage is suffering from a contagious plague of evil plays and exhibitions. The latter usually take the form of dances between men and women, of a character that leaves no doubt as to what was in the mind of the originator. A number of the leading reviews and magazines have taken to discussing the question with a sincerity and fearlessness that is alove suspicion.

The Muck-raker in the Play-house Especially has Mr Walter Pritchard Eaton, formerly dramatic editor of “The Sun” (New York), manifested his vigilance. An unprecedented wave of licentiousness in theatrical entertainments, he maintains (in “Success’*), has arisen and is moving slimily from the “Tenderloin” of New York into the real United States. Vaudeville is already inundated, while the musical comedy has in the past two or three years sunk in many cases to the level of back alley indecency. The dramatic stage itself, he continues has felt the influence and let down the gates to farces of the rankest suggestion.

The Manager’s Uefence. Managers state in defence: “We’ll give the public what they want and pay for. We’ve got to live.” Mr Eaton, however is of a different opinion. “No,” he shouts back, “there is no sufficient reason for your living. There are hardly a dozen of yon m the country whose work could not be better done, vastly better done, by somebody .else.” The ethics of the theatrical manager, lie affirms, do not as a rule reach beyond his pocket-book; and it is there alone America can hit him. We safeguard our dwellings* the writer goes on to say, by

forbidding saloons within so many feet of a school. We safeguard health by forbidding expectoration in public placesWe keep certain books off the shelves of cur public libraries and exclude objectionable matter from the United States mails; but “we are permitting every man, woman and child to-day who goes to a vaudeville theatre —the best of vaudeville theatres—to see naked women exposed to view and almost naked women going through the filthy motion* of the most obscene of Oriental danees.** Further: “We are permitting our young men in so called ‘first-class’ theatres to hear licentious dialogue which is not spoken to illustrate a social truth, with serious purpose, but solely to rouse laughter at sexual immorality. We are permitting these same young men to face the constant assault on their lowest passions of indecent gestures by young women on the stage, of craftily arranged nudity, and the specious glamour of foreign ‘fast life.’ And we are permitting it because we have got into the habit, in recent years, of permitting even laxer dramatic standards to prevail, giving even more and more rope to the present vulgar herd of theatrical managers, allowing the taste of the Tenderloin in New York ever more and more to dictate the character of entertainments in the American theatre.”

Boston—Pure, Proper, Chaste Cultured. New York, stands not altogether alone in its iniquity. “Take,” Mr Eaton says, “the most indecent musical comedy of last winter. Before that play ever came to New York it sold out the theatres in Albany merely on its suggestive title. And Boston, the pure, the proper, the chaste, the cultured, that kicked the Bacchnate out of the Public Library; Boston, that sits by its foggy bay and hugs itself with righteous approval, a pharisee of cities, Boston has been known to tumble over itself to hear the Ziegfeld indecencies. The poison which has emanated originally in New York has spread now throughout the country; it is tolerated, sought for and applauded in the best theatres. It is time to calt a halt, cries out Mr Eaton. “Every time a licentious play prospers while a worthy drama is neglected next door, the path is made much harder for the writer of worthy drama, dramatic art is forced down one step towards the mire.” To quote further: “Perhaps you are a little sceptical. Perhaps you are even a trifle annoyed by the vehemence of all this—this talk of ‘poison’ and ‘indecency’ and lurking danger. You don’t go to such shows. Your pleasant suburb seems quite as pleasant as ever, quite as moral. No, my dear sir or madam, you don’t go to such shows. But are you sure your son doesn’t? And. be very sure that if your son would not do such a thing, other people’s sons may not be so well restrained. Is it not ‘poison’ to the adolescent mind when halfnaked women make suggestive gestures, in the glare of the footlights, directly in his fa'ce? Is it not ‘poison’ when he listens to gross dialogue and indecent songs spoken and sung that they may be laughed at, when he hears one thousand men and women around him laughing at this indecency, thus very justly seeming to him to give it their sanction and approval ? Is it not ‘poison’ when scores and scores of children who, poor things, are taken weekly to ‘refined’ vaudeville because onr stage provides no more suitable entertainment for them, are permitted to see naked women o» the stage, are thus taught that modesty is not, after all, a virtue? I 3 this not preparing them in a few years for the more ready acceptance in the ‘legitimate’ theatre of the doctrine, already prevalent there, that chastity is not a virtue, either? Is it not ‘poison’ when nightly thousands of men and women gather in this or that theatre solely for the purpose (secret or avowed) of finding pleasure in appeals to their lowest instincts ?”

Nothing More Certain. Nothing is more certain,. Mr. Eaton goes on to say, than that suggestion play* a mighty part for good and evil. And

nothing, in his opinion, is more certain, owr theatres to-day, than that we are at present starting a, frightful number of our young men—and older men, too—on tue way toward looseness and the easy acceptance of public immodesty. **ln New York alone, at one time this winter, four plays and inueieal pieces were running and at least two vaudeville entertainments were being given which made frank, bald and unequivocal appeal to the lowest sexual passions. That means that nightly at least seven or eight thousand men and women were being subtly debased in. their moral standards. Is this not poison? Is this net something to get indignant about?” But, the writer admits, these are general charges. Are the facts really as bad as all this? He proceeds, in his charge, to more definite facts. Vaudeville, until recently, made a boast of catering to the family. Ten years ago Air. Keith would not allow an actress who impersonated a French maid to wear silk stockings, because silk stockings were suggestive of fast life. Tb-day vaudeville “headliners” wear no stockings at all. “At Oscar Hammer stain’s roof-garden last summer Gertrude Hollman appeared in- a so - called ‘Salome’ dance, imitated from the dance of a female in London. Mr. Kammerstein this winter has produced at his Opera House Strauss’ opera of ‘Salome.’ Perhaps he was craftily working up interest in advance. Miss Hoffman appeared almost naked, and slobbered over a wax representation of a severed head.

“So great was the ‘success’ of this act that a host of imitations at onee sprang up and went the rounds of vaudeville in other cities. Incidentally, in some theatres, the word ‘refined’ still blazed ironically on the programmes. But as the Salome craze began to subside, a public already whetted by salacious excitement demanded a new thrill. The managers met this demand. Recently a female has been appearing in the vaudeville theatres controlled by William Morris (ironic name!) without so much as* a gauze skirt and jewels. “At the same time the rival vaudeville circuit, headed by the passionately proper Mr. Keith, was exhibiting a professional woman swimmer in a skin-tight union suit, and in order to make the aet, whieh is naturally only an athletic exhibition, suggestive, the managers put on 'the stage a man with a camera to impersonate a peeper. Two sets of naked, shivering females, known respectively as the Bare Bronze Beauties and the Three Golden Graces, are this winter posing as statues, covered with bronze paint, in the rival vaudeville houses. The bronze paint dehumanises them, to be sure, so that they chiefly resemble very bad and clumsy bronze plaster casts. But they are intended to aet as a licentious lure, even if they fail in their effect. “At Kammerstein’s New York theatre a woman appeared last January who used to appear at the Howard Atheneum in Boston —a low joint—who, the week before Kammerstein took her, was performing at Huber’s Museum in New York, a Bowery resort. Why was she elevated into ‘refined vaudeville?’ Because she dances, also half naked, the grossest of Oriental dances. At the World’s Fair of 1893 this dance was greeted with yelps of outraged propriety. Only five years ago it was stopped by the police in New York. Now it is accepted in leading vaudeville theatres, accepted and applaiifled, without comment or interference.”

But let us hear what Mr. Samuel Hopkins Adams has to say in “The American Magazine”:— “The musical shows, in their inception, lost nothing of brightness or gaiety by being decent. As I remember the first of the famous Casino productions, ‘The Passing Show,’ there was not a situation or a line in it that could oilend. And. this has been, though not without exceptions, the general rule, right up to ‘Floradora’ and ‘The Red Mill.’ The problem of sex Which, in one form or another, must be the vital element in all emotional representation of human life, was, up to within recent years, handled either charily or with entire seriousness. Where the seamy side of life was presented, the presentation comprised more sense of moral and less of physical proportions than to-day. Ten years ago we did not chuckle over adultery or joke about prostitution. ‘Orange Blossoms’ was suppressed as being beyond the pale of Twentieth Century tolerance. But Anna Held, exponent of the new tending, has in her plays gone from bad to worse, and in her train have come others, until we find a definite proportion of the stage given over to such productions.

The Defence—or, rather, the Excuse. “Of course there is a defence. Perhaps excuse would be the more apt term. ‘Holding tiie mirror up to life.’ That is the pwipese of tile stage, we are glibly told. 'As attempt to portray the night life of Paris- just as it exists/ is the description, on the programme of ’The Queen, of the Moulin Rouge.’ ‘The Girl from Rector’s’ makes the same claim in other words. In these two we see, illuminated by ‘the light that never was, on sea or land/ a world of gaiety and- harlotry, a debauched and lustful world Tn which there axe no penalties to pay, a world as lightly alien- te moral responsibility as it is te human- reality. Of a certain type of woman, the "gladsome heroine of these plays, an almost forgotten philosopher wrote, ‘Her steps take hold on hell.’ There is no glint of threatening flame in the mirror which your ultra-modem philosopher of the stage holds up to life. No, indeed! 1 The scarlet woman’s steps trip along primrose paths, in merry (if somewhat drunken) dalliance; and in the end she prevails and is, one must suppose, ‘happy ever after.’ The logic of imbecility joined' to the morality of the demi-

monde; the scene, the Tenderloin; dramatis personae, the dregs of society; the purpose, that of the pander stimulating a profitable lust—such is the stage that ‘holds the mirror up to life.’ Is there no distortion on the surface of the glass? Is this, in truth, to what the world has come, or is coming? Then let us all, in the name of the eternal decencies, quietly commit suicide, leaving the polluted earth to the tiger and the ape I

“ The Queen of the Moulin Rouge.’ “Even at the cost of a shock to sheltered sensibilities, it is worth while to analyse this new movement through some of its principal exemplifications. The responsibility is universal, and the peril comprehensive, in a country where the theatres are open to all ages and conditions.’

“Frankly put, the one interest ot ‘The Queen of the Moulin Rouge” is sexual. The title is a fair and competent advertisement. As everyone is supposed to know, the Moulin Rouge is a famous Parisian resort frequented by prostitutes and their followers. This is the environment and atmosphere of the whole play. The plot is so slight as to be almost negligible, concerning itself with a young king “out lor a good time” with his attendant courtiers and his fiancee, who, to prove that she is no prude, becomes 'Queen of the Moulin Rouge.* There are, of course, ‘models,*

‘apaches,’ and other figures of- night life in Montmartre; but the seheme of the play is quite unimportant, except as leading up; with same degree- of skill, to oertahv 'situations’ and- displays. The climax of. the first act camos in the parade across the stage, of ftonts, supposed to be eapiedr from the Quap bArts Ball; eaeft float bearing a woman clad' only in flashings. I have seen the nude ‘living pictures’ of the Boulevard music-halls in Paris, and 1 they- are far more- suggestive of art and less suggestive of a certain sort of professionalism than- the c famant nakedness of the posedi figures in tights. “Tn the second act the curtain rises on ‘the house with the green shutters/ which, in the course of events, is raided by the police, the women being bundled off to the station. It is this detail which give® rise to the triumphant climax of the piece, a scene within, the station house. Although quite contrary to real- life, by a stretch of dramatic (and moral) license, the women of ‘the house with the glreen shutters’ are ordered to undress in their cells. The front of the cells, of course, are open to the audience. They strip down to the most elementary underclothes, to

the music of a song entitled ‘Take That Off Too/ and then proceed to resolve the trimming ef their hats into stockings, skirts, etc., clad in whieh they sally forth to dance joyously. There have been plays on the American stage in whieh a woman has partially disrobed, and without offence or suggestiveness, as in ‘The Chorus Lady.’ There the situation inhered in the action. Here the action obviously leads up to a situation as strained and absurd as it is indecent. Of the rest of the play there is little to be said. It included a scene (-by shadow) in a enbi-net particulier; an ensemble dance of astonishingly vulgar posturing, and a duo dame in which the man’s performance was such, in suggestiveness, as defies even suggestion in these pages. Honour to whom honour is due. The person responsible for this masterpiece is Paul M. Potter, an American.

“ Miss Innocence.”

“Had Shakespeare ever suffered the amazement of seeing “Miss Innocence/ he would not have said ‘the play’s the thing.’ Anna Held is the thing. The play is written down to the level of her guiding principle, ‘all the public will bear.’ On the programme, ‘Miss Innocence’ is described as “a musical entertainment/ which is rather a stretch of the facts. Musical it is not, certainly, and in only a slight degree is it entar-

tamiug. Take from it the n- 1 ----!;- — the suggastivenesa, the aetiud ‘siatot,* anil 1 venture the prediction thuH i< would not last a week on any stage. As might be expected from the ‘modal pupil of a model' selwol’ (-1 quote- from the programme), ‘Miss Innocence' goes straight from the island resort to- the centre of the demi.-mmide of Paris, this time L’Abbaye. Here we see the sight already made familiar in the "new style’ play, the revel of harlotry. Later, there is a delicate and dainty scene, the invasion of a bridal chamber by tile holy’s former husbands, in the course of which, as if to put a point ami pinnacle on the whole matter, the comedian jocularly addresses one of the entrants by a name long made notorious in advertisements as that of the leading quack practitioner in private diseases of men. So much for the heights to which comedy can rise under pressure. Two scenes quite unrelated to the play are introilueed, the one to show a supposedly naked woman model in a studio: the other to ‘set’ a chorus ot women reclining on tiger skins and singing, from the theme of a certain nauseous novel, their iTesire for a son and heir, the ole* being directed 1 to the male part of the

‘Three Weeks with You.’ The: plat of chorus. This tasteful bit was. entitled the play doesn’t matter, even were it traceable. “Salome.’’ “Salome” is an opera in which the prose play of Oscar Wilde is set to music By Richard Strauss. It portrays the imagined actions and emotions of the daughter of Herodias and assigns the basest reasons for her demand for the head of John the Baptist. hi Oscar Wilde’s hands the story becomes the artistic apothesis of degencraio passion. John is unmoved by the appioifliea of Salome, who sets about getting some satisfaction for her abnormal lust. She takes advantage of the temperament of Tierod (her mother’s husband) and through a voluptuous dance she rouses him that he offers to grant any request. She asks for the head of John, and when it is brought falls upon it with loathsome caresses, as the final curtain drops. This piece was given at the Metropolitan Opera House some years ago with Fremstad in the title role. It was taken off after one performance, thougji. presented without the frank emphasis, evident in the current production. How fax luxity of public opinion has gone iu the interval is seen from the fact that “Salome,” with Mary Garden as Herodias' daughter, lias been given afi ths

Manhattan Opera Houae more times this past winter than any other opera at either house. “Salome” is a slightly disguised piece of abnormal sensuality. This sort of thing can only be normal in a world made up of lecherous-minded people—a world in which such ideas and motives being natural to the mass are the proper subjects of art. The book drapes the disgusting theme with the magic of artistry; with wonderful and instinctive skill a genuine poet expresses his degraded temperament in simple voluptuous language that lures to a state of mind destructive of feeling and thought. There are no aesthetics of bestiality as Buch; in “Salome” there is only the confusing appeal to i..e corrupt sense in the guise of pretended beauty—which but drapes the thing in order to suggest what should not be seen. In reading the Beene between Salome and John, we can imagine the melodious recital of Salome’s ■Words with restrained and poignant acting, as by an overwrought worshipper of Dionysius, producing an acceptable effect because of its world old significance of passion. But as delivered by Alary Garden in philistine abandon of dress and posture, signifying to the most stupid Svhat the most stupid think of as the exhibit of desire, the whole scene becomes absurd and ridiculous. And yet the opera house is thronged with men and Women, many of them young, to look upon the abhorrent piece, that has no Redeeming idea or suggestion. Even the charm of parts of the score is lost —• for the disgusting evolution of the action on the stage, brilliantly set and costumed, is too startling and sensational to permit of the music being appreciated. In Australia. I must apologise to the reader whose Bense of delicacy has been shocked by these excerpts. None the less, they are the least unvarnished. The truth, moreover, is an ugly thing to face sometimes. , There is very good reason for bringing them up to public notice. New Zealand is shortly to see “The King of Cadonia” - —yet another musical comedy. In regard to this production I take the following from Melbourne “Punch”:— “ ‘Le danse des Apaches,’ performed by Mr. Bert Gilbert and Miss Lottie Sargeant in ‘The King of Cadonia,’ is calculated to shock the susceptibilities of the Unco guid, who considered ‘The Merry Widow’ waltz to be just a little naughty. Essentially a dance of the senses, this latest performance is supposed to show the feelings of the Parisian Apache, or Hooligan, for the girl of his choice. The 'Apache is decidedly a creature of primitive instincts, as may be gathered from the dance. In the first movement, which is merely the ‘Merry Widow’ waltz without its refinement, the pair waltz in close embrace, gazing meanwhile into each other’s eyes, the world forgetting, by the world forgot. Presently the sensuous movement changes to one of passion, Which, increasing in violence, ends in the man seizing his partner and flinging her beneath him nearly on to the floor, three or four times in succession, suggesting thereby murder and brutality, until, Smitten by sudden repentance, he loosens his hold, 1 and seizes the scarlet kerchief which is- tied round her neck, dances wildly round, compelling his victim to do likewise; she, with a look of mingled terror and admiration, leaning back in this improvised halter, a creature too ,Weak to resist. Again the man’s mood changes, he again clasps the girl closely in his arms, gazing with rapture into her byes, both drunk with love’s passion. Now and then he passes his hand over her cheek, until again his brutal nature impels him to try to strangle the woman, Or knock her head on the floor. As a piece of acting, it is beyond reproach, but as a spectacle—well!” The Responsibilities of Colonial Managers. “Th© Merry Widow” that lately visited these shores, ventured into the realms of suggestion as far as it -was evidently deemed expedient to go. The celebrated dance was given in a much more artistic and restrained- manner than was witnessed in Australia. In Sydney the comment that it gave rise to did, not find its way into the columns of the dailies, But in this Mr. 51. C. Williamson's latest production is a bolder innovation that can but point to the road which Now York is traversing. The more is the pity. Performances of this class can be short-lived before public opinion is aroused to a storm of protest. In the meantime the minds •f hundreds of young men and maidens

have been permitted to be filled with that delicate and deadly suggestion which is the moral undoing of Society. Undoubtedly the public are to blame in the first place for countenancing and desiring to secretly satiate themselves with such performances. But that does not remove the responsibility from the shoulders of the managers who hold in the modern stage one of the most powerful machines for the shaping of public opinion. By reason of this, there rests with them a certain moral obligation and duty to the community. I should be sorry to see a censor of playa in New Zealand. At best the censor is clumsy, and often stupid. The 'solution of the difficulty rests with the managers. When they definitely fail, then the time will be ripe to discuss other measures. Mr. Alfred Hill's Concert. The concert which is to be given in Wellington as a complimentary benefit to Mr. Alfred Hill, New Zealand’s foremost musical composer, is likely to be one of the most successful functions of its kind that ever has taken place in Wellington. The interest in it and in the beneficiary is not confined to this city. Per medium of Airs. Ernest H. Queree, who was associated in matters musical for some time, a sum of £l5 sent down by Auckland sympathisers has reached the treasurers, and there is every prospect of Mr. Hill receiving a handsome cheque—just to show him how sincerely the public of New Zealand congratulates him upon his recovery from an illness that at one time was of the most serious character. Mr. Hill’s compositions have been published far and wide, and have received the commendations of many critics. His comic opera, the “Moorish Maid,” has been accepted in London, and is to be produced in October next. The Last of the Magicians. Congratulations to Harry Rickards for a bright-clean show, overtopped by the incomparable Ghung Ling Soo. He has made a corner in illusions. Like some pale-faced, languid magician, he conjures up at will all that is mystical and unpremeditated in the black arts. From steaming cauldrons, he produced live rabbits, pigeons, poultry, and even his own charming wife. He eats flaming foods, lighted candles, and cotton wadding, and blows them all out through his lips in clouds of smoke and sparks. He loses a pack of cards with one hand and produces them with the other. There is no power on earth that can penetrate behind the throne of this king of illusionists. He is the last word in magic. For twenty minutes the audience hovers between giddiness and gasps. The brain reels before the mysterious revels of this imperturbable Chinaman and his sleek, noiseless assistants. It would be the apotheosis of Celestial mysticism if it were not amazing illusion. Chung Ling Soo is the quaintest human marvel New Zealand has ever seen, the unfathomable wonder of the wide world. And he does everything so languidly and clean that the climax of each illusion becomes all the more remarkable. The vaudeville company itself is well up to the Rickards’ standard. The trick bicycle gymnastics by the Two Wheelers are original, daring and humorous. Two of the weird, intrepid dancers, known as

D’Artos, contribute a startling “turn.” Their antics are more violent than graseful, more bewildering than pleasing. The “Merry Widow” waltz, in particular, is a succession of thrills and almost savage in its abandonment to sheer physical force. Stewart and Lorraine have some rather novel and incongruous musical bells, whilst Kalman, the comedian, despite an occasional suggestion of vulgarity, gets in some highly amusing songs and patter. Alaster Ray McLean, who imitates “Little Tich,” looks like an insect, or -the superman of 2000 A.D. He resembles more a monstrous insect than the immortal and unblushing Tich, and his performance is almost too incongruous, if not uncanny, to be wholly humorous. In most things the combination is sound, attractive, and good, even if the singing of the lady performers has little to recommend it. But all this is insignificant to Chung. Ling Soo. He is a show in himself, and he wants neither posters nor Press to advertise it.