AN ACTRESS' BLACK BABY.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume IX, Issue 693, 18 June 1903, Page 10

AN ACTRESS' BLACK BABY.

I have had some very 'curious incidents happen to me (savs Mrs Brown-Potter in the latest “ M.A.P. 'j, and some very amusing ones. Once in Capetown I was playing ‘FrouFrou.” There were two carpenters engaged at the theatre, one a white man and the other a black man. The white man allowed his little child to play “ the child” in the piece. One day it went home from the rehearsal with a violent cold. That night I, as the wife of a jealous husband, had, as usual, to place the child in his arms : being rather hurried, and the wings being dark, I snatched up the child standing there, rushed on to the stage, placed the child in his arms, and he held it, face towards the audience, high above his head, saying, “ You, you at all events are mine !” It isi a thrilling situation, but, to Mr Kyrle Bellew’s amazement the child was greeted with a roar of laughter, which soon became perfectly hysterical. Lowering the child to see what was the matter, he discovered to his horror that it was a negro, pot-black ! The other carpenter had sent his child to take the place of the white one absent through illness. It turned a tragedy into a screaming farce —for the populace, at all events; it was far from being a farce to us, for we had to abandon the piece altogether through our South African tour.

Miss Bertha Rossow, who made her debut in Australia with Madame Janet Patey some 13 years ago, goes to South Africa as soprano to the Wolft-Hollmann Concert Party.

Madame Marchesi, the famous Parisian singing teacher, charges £l4 4s a month for lesson in class, but if a pupil takes half an hour daily the fee is £3O for that period j At the latter rate, adding the rate of living as economically as possible, the singer cannot manage on less than £4O per month.

Miss Pattie Browne recently sent a telefram t© the management of the Duke of ork’s Theatre, saying she would be unable to play that morning, as she had urgent business to attend to. It turned out that the business was “ extra special” —being matrimony. Miss Browne was that morning married to a member of the Stock Exchange; but she appeared the gamp, evening, and sustained with her usual drollery and skill her part of Tweenie in “ The Admirable Crichton.”

The Brough Company have finally disbanded. “Of the future movements of Mr and Mrs Brough,” Mr Hamilton says, “ nothing whatever will be settled until they have reached London, and had a good solid holiday. Mr Brough has some idea of going to America, but nothing is in any way fixed. The statements which have appeared in several Australian papers about their returning to this country are entirely without foundation. The Broughs will never appear in Australia again. This is absolutely certain.

The announcement is made that Tomaso Salvini, the great Italian actor, is goikg to retire from l the stage. To many people (says the “ Westminster Gazette ”) the news that he is still treading the boards will come with a strange surprise, for Salvini is now an old man of 74. Old playgoers will remember his visit to London in 1875, when he played Othello, the Gladiator and “ Hamlet ” at Drury Lane. It was a pleasant little triumph for Salvini. The actor concludes an allusian in his autobiography to his English visit with this little note of romance : “I left behind in London many genial acquaintances and enduring friendships, besides a sincere affection for a young orphan girl, who became my wife in the course of that year.”

“ Were Shakespeare to be more widely read in the boudoir and the drawingroom,” Mr Beerbohm Tree said in an interesting speech at Stratford-on-Avon recently, “ I verily believe that the good woman would come into fashion once again. The tiresome woman finds no place in Shakespeare. Even Lady Macbeth was heroic in her criminal devotion to her spouse. Cleopatra came nearest, perhaps, to the restless female of to-day, but even she was great in ‘ immortal longings ’ of her eternal feminity.”

Veteran John L. Toole celebrated his seventy-third birthday last month.

My Christchurch correspondent writes —“ The ancient Theatre Royal has bee® given over to darkness and locked doors since the Rickards’ Company departed for fresh fields), but the Majeronis promise to pay us another Visit about the end of th® current month, when we hope to see ” Jealpusy.” Then on July 18 the Hawtrey Company are due to play a retur® season, and later on in the same rainful month the Williamson Dramatic Company will bob up serenely at the Theatre Royal. Oh, and a leading member of the Christchurch Amateur Dramatic Company, Mr J. Woods, to wit, tells me that the the aforesaid combination (which has booked the Royal for ten nights at Grand National time) is going to astonish the natives with one or two pieces now in active rehearsal, including the famous “ Jane,” which, of course, as you know, is a farcical comedy of the most excruciatingly funny description. I am sure I wish the Christchurch Amateur Dramatic Company a most successful season. . . . Mr Macdermott, of Cooper and Macdermott’s clever Bilograph Show, writes me from Dunedin to say that they have been having a grand season in. the Southern metropolis, and, in fact, repeating their Christchurch success. Mr Macdermott reminds me that he and his partner hail from Auckland, and asks me to give him a line in the ‘ Review/ which is very popular with the profesh right through this island.”

My Wellington correspondent writes, under date June nth, that Rickards’ Vaudeville Coy. are doing good business at the Opera House. Jacques Inaudi, the mental marvel, closed his season last Friday and Messrs Seeley and West, a musical sketch team of a very high order, took his place. The act of Seeley and West is undoubtedly very fine, their array of instruments being many and varied, and each is played with a correctness that stamps them with the hallmark of musician. Geo. W. Hunter, comedian, makes his final bow on Friday, and will be replaced by Hill and Silvainey, a daring bicycle team. Wallace Brownlow, Sam Houldsworth, Clive, Eileen Capel and others form an attractive hill. Bert Bradley and Miss Florrie Barnes also join the Coy. this week. . . . Dix’s Gaiety Coy. are keeping their end up at the Theatre Royal this week, being conundrum week. A price! of one guinea .is to be given .for the best answer to the conundrum, “ Why is the Theatre Royal the most popular playhouse in New Zealand ? ” . . . Fuller’s Entertainers are drawing good houses at the Choral Hall, and the show is as good as its predecessors. . . . Geo. Musgrove’s new English Comedy Coy. are to open the Opera House on Wednesday next with “ Sweet Nell of Old Drury.” The booking office opened this morning, and the seats sold like hot cakes. The only thing that seems to gall the people is the “ early door ” imposition, for which Mr Rickards has been a big sufferer this season, and the people will not have it. ■