STAGE PARS.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XV, Issue 872, 22 November 1906, Page 22

STAGE PARS.

From India comes word of the continued success of our old friend Mr Dave O’Connor. In a lengthy account of the doings of Mi* O Connor s Opera Company, the “Calcutta Empire says: Mr O’Connor has appeared on many stages in the East, having made extensive tours with Mr Bandmann. He is Irish by birth, though his boyhood was spent in Australia —the country where he made his theatrical debut. Mr O’Connor makes a naive confession as to how the latter was brought about. “I was sent to College in Melbourne,” he laughingly said in a recent conversation, “but college and I did not agree.” This disagreement may or may not have been detrimental to the school but it certainly resulted to the advantage of he stage. He played truant from school and managed for nearly three months to keep the news of his misdeeds from his parents’ knowledge. Then, when de ection was imminent, he fled. Through the influence of a friend he joined a travelling theatrical company, and thus at the age of fifteen found himself a full-blown actor on a salary of a week. Of course he returned home and was forgiven for his misdeeds before many weeks had passed, but he never forsook the profession which such strange circumstances caused him to adopt. In the course of his brief career —he is now but twentyseven years old —Mr O’Connor has played in nearly every civilised country in the world. He has toured in North and South America, Australia New Zealand, India and the Far East, and South A r rica and has played in England, Scotland, and Ireland. Four years ago he was with one of Mr Bandmann’s companies in Panama, when the revolution was at its height. Their tour was abruptly interrupted, and they had to be escorted across the frontier by a troop of American soldiers. Mr O’Connor is now in Rangoon.

There was persistent booing on the first night of Mr. George Edwardes’ piece, “ The New Aladdin,” at the London Gaiety. The second act was said to be very poor, and this is to be altered.