THE STAGE

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XVI, Issue 952, 4 June 1908, Page 16

THE STAGE

HIS MAJESTY’S THEATRE.

“THE EARL AND THE GIRL.” After a highly successful run of twelve nights, to say nothing of several matinees, the pantomime “Cinderella” gave place on Saturday night to the very popular musical comedy, “The Earl and the Girl.” The piece has been played here before by the Sheridan Company, and therefore it is quite unnecessary to describe it. Its reason to be is simply to produce laughter and, as from the rise of the curtain to the fall, the audience is continually in a r.oar, there is no doubt a big success is achieved. The outstanding features are the amusing work of Mr Sheridan and the allround excellence of the chorus and ballet. Jim Cheeze, the dog fancier, is one of Mr Sheridan’s best parts. It affords him the fullest scope for showing his powers as a comedian, and of this he takes the utmost advantage. In the scene at the hall when the fancy dress ball is in progress, he is at his very best, the fun being fast and furious, while he is masquerading as the Earl “for one night only.” Miss Heba Barlow resumes her old role as ’Liza, into which she throws plenty of energy. There is too great a strain on the voice, however, and this tells against her in the one or two songs she has to sing. Miss Hilda Lane was perhaps hardly chic enough for Daisy Fallowfield, but she sang pleasingly enough. Miss Stella Seibourne made a remarkably imposing figure as Virginia Bliss. Miss Marie Eaton hardly looked the part of Elphin Haye, but acted and sang well, the “rose song” going splendidly. Miss Flo Faning did some excellent work in Mrs Shimmering Black, a strong woman of the virago stamp. Mr Thomas Curran was Dick War grave, as of yore, showing much ability for

comedy of the light and breezy kind. Mr James Hughes threw plenty of force into the role of the fire-eating Bunker Bliss. Mr De Lisle satisfactorily got through the inane part of Gussie Cfanbourne. Mr J. Hagan, in an appalling suit, dashed into the role of Downham, the Yankee solicitor, with the utmost vigour, and the others in a long cast he'ped things along right merrily. It is hardly necessary to add that the variety turn introduced by Messrs Morris and Wilson went with a bang, their tumbling being remarkably clever and amusing withal. It is, however, the welltrained chorus and ballet which so greatly help to make the play. They are not only very strong in point of of numbers, but their vocal work is well done and the various marches and ballets most admirably carried out. The piece is very handsomely staged and the costumes are very striking. This evening will be the last occasion “The Earl and the Girl” will be played, and those who have not seen it should certainly not miss the chance. To-morrow evening the company will bring the Auckland season to a close when will be staged the evergreen “Fun on the Bristol,” Mr Sheridan giving us one more opportunity of seeing his immortal creation, the Widow O’Brien. Just how many times he has played it would be a little difficult I should imagine for even the creator of the role to say. It was some twenty-four years ago since I first laughed at the lady, and as “she was no chicken” then the buxom widow must be of most uncertain age. As a traveller, she holds the record, having been all over the world many a time and oft. Probably the theatre will be found too small to accommodate those who wish to accompany the genial widdy on her voyage in the good ship Bristol, and to say good-bye to the company.

MESSRS MEYNELL AND GUNN’S COMPANY.

On Monday next Messrs Meynell and Gunn’s Company, with Mr Harcourt Beatty and Miss Madge Mclntosh at its head, will open a season at His Majesty’s, the initial production being the stirring military drama “Her Love Against the World.” The story deals with an episode in the war between Ravensburg and Jasconin. It is of the “Prisoner of Zenda” type and centres round the doings of Eric, Earl of Strathmere, who, owing to financial embarrassment, has sought his fortune abroad. The story of his love for the Princess Iris and how he outrivals and revenges himself upon the wicked Prince Ulric, is an intensely fascinating one, holding the attention of the audience closely throughout. Mr Harcourt Beatty, a great favourite here, takes the part of the Earl and makes a manly hero, playing the soldier lover in a most convincing style. Miss Madge Mclntosh, who is cast for Princess Iris, comes to us with the highest credentials. She is said to be a particularly fine emotional actress. The company, which arrives from Sydney on Sunday, further includes that fine actor, Mr Gaston Mervale, Mr Norman McKeown, Messrs Irwin, Russell, Beresford, Phillips, Stace, Beckett and Tom Cannam, and the Misses Hilda Meade, Nora Delaney, and Winifred Gunn. The box plan is now open.

OPERA HOUSE.

THE ROYAL PICTURES.

On Monday night the World’s Picture Syndicate opened a four weeks’ season at the Opera House, in the presence of a large audience. ' The series of films shown constitute a wonderful set of descriptive and amusing pictures which do not fail to appeal to the audience, as is evidenced by the outbursts of appreciation. The pictures are reflected on

to the screen with remarkable distinctness, while a noticeable feature is the absence of any flickering movement. A first-rate programme is carried out and is made doubly attractive as a result of the excellent musical items rendered by Mr Frank ’ Crowther’s orchestra. The films depicting various phases of animal life are decidedly realistic, those of “Farmyard Friends,” “The Egg” and “The Owl” being of a very high order. Another excellent film is that of “Scenes in Cornwall,” the huge breakers on the Cornish coast presenting a most natural effect. Of the humorous series “Willie’s Magic Wand,” “Transformation of a Horse,” “A Father’s Lesson,” “The Mummy,” “Adventures of an Overcoat,” etc., provide an intensely amusing selection. Other pictures of particularly high merit are “The Vestal,” “College Chums,” “Chanpagne Industry” and “Many Ways of Smuggling.” Altogether the entertainment provided in a really enjoyable one and should not be missed seeing on any account.

“THE PRINCE OF PILSEN.”

To be translated into both French and German is not an honour that is paid to many American musical comedies, indeed “The Prince of Pilson,” which went up at the Theatre Royal, Sydney, last Saturday, is one of the very few, if not the only one, to achieve the distinction. It is now being played to big business in Paris and Berlin, has had a very successful season in London, and is still a strong draw in the land of its birth. And it has certainly much to recommend it. For the story of Frank Pixley has turned to very humorous account the brief but glorious career of a Cincinnati brewer who is mistaken for the hereditary German Prince and puts in a brilliant time of it until the error is discovered. Its music is smart, tuneful and bright as all American lyric music is, and its cast is decidedly a strong one.

The brewer who is exalted to such a giddy altitude is played by Charles Loder, specially engaged for the part in America by Mr J. C. Williamson. Mr George Whitehead, who made his debut as the real Prince, Mr Edmund Sherras, the brewer’s son, and Miss Amy Murphy, the brewer’s daughter. Miss Olive Godwin and Miss Alma Barber have also important singing parts, while Miss Fanny Dango and Miss Daisie Wallace are well suited as a French chambermaid and a bell boy. The cast is completed by Messrs Myles Clifton, Parkes, Stirling and Lissant —altogether a strong combination.

AUCKLAND SKATING RINK.

At the skating rink, in Coburg Street, devotees of this fascinating pastime merrily pursue their way, tortuous though it be at times. Beginners under the patient direction of the management are showing good headway, and with commendable perseverance are making themselves masters of their “understandings.'” Enthusiastic crowds attend each session, and rinking is evidently going to more than hold its own this winter. With crisp weather, excellent floor and a good band, there is every factor to attract large attendances, and the numbers are increasing daily. A special inducement is offered ladies, every Thursday evening being devoted to them, when they will be admitted free.

MRS WIGGS ON HER WAY.

The daily papers last week announced the departure from Vancouver of the complete company J. C. Williamson has engaged to play the delightful comedy “Mrs Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch” through Australia and New Zealand. The steamer is due to arrive in Sydney on June 10. It is a strong combination that has been selected to present it, including in its ranks many players who possess the distinction of having created their respective parts, Or of having successfully appeared in them either in America or England during one or other of the seasons the piece has had in those countries. Miss Ada Dwyerm, an experienced and very popular actress, is to be Mrs Wiggs, and Miss Jennie Reiff art, well known on this side of the world, the heroine’s friend, Mrs Schultz. Among the “originals” are Miss Helen Lowell, who plays the important part of Miss Hazy, a shy and simple spinster whom Mrs Wiggs insists in mak-

ing a match for, Miss Helene Raymond (Mrs Eichom), Argyl Campbell (Billy Wiggs, A. W. Maflin. (Deacon Bagsby), and Joe Smiley (The Sheriff).

BIG RETURNS.

The New York returns for “The Merry Widow” season there are truly startling. When the last mails left it had just finished its twenty-fifth week there, and with the booking still solid for three months ahead, it was plainly apparent that it was to last out the year—a thing very seldom accomplished on Broadway.

Never during the whole of that tfme did the receipts fall below £4OOO per week so that on a conservative estimate the total sum taken in the box office for less than six months, reached the amazing total of £lOO,OOO.

MODERN MAGIC.

Our old friend Mr. Henry Hayward, an entrepreneur who will be remembered in connection with “West’s Pictures and the Brescians,” has booked an Antipodean tour of Maskelyne and Devant’s Mysteries, and the large company, numbering 26 people, and carrying a great amount of valuable plant, has opened with brilliant success in Sydney, the audiences standing three deep behind circle stalls an 3 gallery. The chief magical sketch, “Will the Witch and the Watchman,” came as an absolute novelty to Australians —folks down under, and an interested committee from the audience nightly goes on the stage to watch closely the comedy, with Mr Maskelyne’s extraordinary box trick as a motif. “The Artist’s Dream,” a pathetic little spirit romance, has proved very popular. Gintaro, the greatest of modern jugglers, Owen Clark, a brilliant young conjuror, and Mr Barclay Gammon, a humorist, the chief musical monologuist of London, are included in the programme. The entertainment, whilst breathlessly exciting and at times very funny, is one of immaculate refinement.

MARGARET ANGLIN.

The Australian tour, under the J. C. Williamson management, of Margaret Anglin, which commences in Sydney at the end of next month, promises to be of exceptional interest as regards the repertoire. In it will be included “His House in Order,” Pinero’s latest and best piece; “The Thief,” by Bernstein, which created such a sensation in London last year, the same author’s “The Thunderbolt”; “Diana of Dobson’s,” with which Lena Askwell has made another triumph in London, and “The Awakening of Helene Ritchie,” a dramatisation of Miss Deland’s study of a young girl who, through suffering and sorrow comes at last to realise the truth of life and love.

The “Cinderella” Pantomime Company leave for Gisborne by the Monowai next Saturday.

Mr Ben. Fuller is in Australia booking new artists for the circuit. During his stay in Sydney he engaged the following artists for the New Zealand circuit:—Maud Fanning (coon soubrette), Arthur Elliott (comic singer), Elliott Sisters (song and sketch), Carlton and Sutton (sketch artists), and Scott and Beresford (sketch artists). They were due in Wellington yesterday.

There will shortly arrive in Australia Mr and Mrs Albert Mallinson, two of the most notable figures in the musical world at the present time. Mr Mallinson is the famous composer of songs known in every part of the world, where musical culture has spread, and has over 300 to his credit. His wife is Madame Anna Steinhauer, the celebrated Danish soprano, who is considered by her country folk to be their leading singer. Their recitals, which are under the immediate patronage of Queen Alexandra, have been a feature of the London Musical world for years. The New Zealand tour will open at Auckland on July 15, the Wellington season commencing on September 2, Christchurch 12, Dunedin 26. The following centres will also be visited: Gisborne, Napier, Hastings, Dannevirke, Wanganui, Marton, Hawera, New Plymouth, Stratford, Feilding, Palmerston North, Masterton, Ashburton, Timaru, Oamaru, and Invercargill.

Of Maskelyne and Devant’s Mysteries now running to big business in Sydney, the “Bulletin” says:—“The English magician’s creations at the Palace filled that charming theatre to the brim. . . ‘Will the Witch and

the Watchman’ is an amazing illusion, and this writer gives it up. As an illustration of the ancient statement, said to have been made upon oath before a J.P., that things are not what they seem and visions are about, Maskelyne and Devant’s Mysteries hold a high place.”

Athos, the comedy and trick skater, well known over here, is in the bill at the Melbourne Gaiety. Afterwards he goes to Newcastle.

On May 30, the Brewster’s Millions Company opened for a brief season in Newcastle and then make a trip half way round the Continent to Perth, opening there on June 20th. They pay a fortnight’s visit to Adelaide on the way back. <

The Reverend Worrall, of Bendigo, is never happy unless condemning some amusement—it may be horseracing, dancing, or other sport, but in his eyes any and every kind of recreation is a sin—a double dyed, deadly, grievous sin. Now the advertising gentleman has turned to the stage, and at a sermon in his city recently, warned parents not to allow their children to enter the doors of a theatre, on the grounds that the great majority of actors and actresses were of very low moral standard. Is it any wonder that men stay away from church when such utter and un-Christianlike rubbish is talked from the pulpit? Faugh! it makes one sick to think that such people are allowed to so slander better than themselves and that under the cloak of religion.

THE NEW THEATRICAL FIRM.

MR CLYDE MEYNELL’S EXPERIENCES.

Mr Meynell is one of “The Big Four,” the new theatrical firm which promised to give Australia its best, and which has made an excellent beginning in Sydney, Melbourne,, and Newcastle, and whose dramatic company opens here next Monday. Its component parts are Sir Rupert Clarke, Mr John Wren, Mr Clyde Meynell, and Mr John Gunn, surely a very formidable combination! “I was not born in the profession or bred in it,” said Mr Meynell in the course of an interview with a “Town and Country Journal” scribe. “I came into it because very many of my friends were on the stage. As a matter of fact, I was intended for the medical profession. I began as an actor in one of the old stock companies. That was in 1885. I gained a lot of valuable experience, because we played six pieces a week. I received a very small salary, twentyfive bob a week, in fact, and did four times the work the young fellows do now who get a fiver a week to speak six lines. But that was the school to learn’s one business, and that variety used to prevail in Australia some years ago. The young fellows we get now do not have that chance. We played all kinds of things, even burlesque. The company was a sort of touring stock company, and did all the towns in the south of England, such as Bristol and Plymouth. I remained with this combination for 18 months;; then I went to London to play small parts with the Compton Comedy Company. It was in that show that Mr Harcourt Beatty, the leading man of ‘The Beggar on Horseback,’ and .I. met... We. were playing about six lines apiece. My experience next included an engagement with Madle. Beatrice, an actress very wellknown in England. Her repertoire included all Frank Harvey’s plays.” Mr Meynell remained an actor for some five or six years, and then the recollection of the fact that he was originally intended for a doctor became so acute, and played so much upon his mind, that he forsook the stage and hied post-haste to Edinburgh. There he studied pathology instead of powder-puffs, materia medica instead of grease paint, and skeletons instead of clothes and the art of dressing, so successfully that he qualified in three years and nine months.

Having qualified, I obtained several public appointments as a medical man, and then I returned to my first love —the stage.

I entered into partnership with Horace Lingard, the well-known comedian —well known out here, too—who was running companies in the English provinces; next I dropped acting and went in for business management, having accepted that position with Miss Fortescue.

“Then I joined Messrs Morell and Mouillot, who were big caterers for the English provinces. Their line was mostly musical comedies, though they included in their repertoire all kinds of attractions. I next became resident manager of the Theatre Royal, Bournemouth, and also built the Grand Theatre at Southampton. I also ran ‘My friend, the Prince,’ in partnership with Mr Cotton, Ada Reeve’s husband. “From that I became associated with Mr Beerbohm Tree, and when he decided to sena a company to Australia in association with Mr J. C. Williamson, I accompanied it as stage producer.” The company, which was known as the Beerbohm Tree Company, it will be recollected, had for its leads Miss Maud Jeffries and Mr Julius Knight, the plays being “Resurrection,” “The Eternal City,” and “Monsieur Beaucaire.” “I became associated with Mr John Gunn, and nephew of the celebrated Michael Gunn, of Dublin, and in partnership with Mr J. C. Williamson formed the Knight-Jeffries Company. This association was remarkably successful for nine months, and then, as you will remember, Mr Knight was seized with typhoid fever, and his absence from the casts proved very disastrous to the addition column of the treasurer’s sheet. We were not disheartened by this setback, for we brought out J. J. Dallas and Florence Lloyd, who appeared in ‘The J.P.’ and ‘There and Back.’ After this we secured ‘The Fatal Wedding,’ which proved a very big money spinner. ’“Theatrical management,” said Mr Meynell, “is purely a commercial business, and it does not do to speculate. There is nothing at which one can make money quicker, but there is nothing at which money may be dropped so quickly. In the event of our accepting a local play, the chances are it would cost about £lOOO before the curtain went up. That is our risk, which the writer does not take into consideration. The manager to-day says: ‘Let’s buy something that has made money somewhere else, and which has the hall mark of another man’s production.’ We want success, for it is a shade of odds on that if a play has made money elsewhere it will do so here too. It is no use buying a pig in a poke.

Meynell and Gunn’s “Little Bread Winner” and “Stepmother” Co., which is having an enormously successful season in Queensland, opens a New Zealand tour at Christchurch on August 6, the remainder of the bookings being:—lnvercargill, August 18; Dunedin, 22; Timaru, 31; Wellington September 2; Palmerston North, 23; Wanganui, 25; New Plymouth, 28; Auckland, 30; then short seasons in Napier, Hastings, Dannevirke and Masterton.

A GREAT HIT.

Some indication of the way in which “The Merry Widow” has captured the taste of Melbourne audiences (writes Mr George Tallis), may be gauged from the fact that the returns for the second Saturday night exceeded those of the first, despite the extraordinarily heavy booking that occurred for the opening performance, and Lehar’s beautiful opera, with its bewitching music, its fine strain of sentiment and comedy interwoven, its exceptionally haunting melodies, its magnificent mounting and dressing, deserves the great triumph it has achieved. Especially may this be granted when the allround excellence of the cast is noted. There have been scores of playgoers who have seen the piece in London or elsewhere among the 300 or so theatres where it is now being played, and who have returned to Melbourne to find that the production here equals the best in the old world, and in many respects is superior. With the principal solos in the hands of Miss Carrie Moore and Miss Florence Young, Mr Andrew Higginson and Mr Reg. Roberts, with Mr Victor Gouriet as the delightfully quaint and peppery Baron Popoff, with Mr Fred Leslie revelling in the part of Nisch, messenger to the Embassy, with Messrs C. R. Bantock, W. S. Percy and Arthur Hunter all contributing to the fund of laughter, and with a chorus never before at such a high level in the history of the Royal Comic Opera Company, the general result could not well be different.

HUMPTY DUMPTY BOOKS HIS PASSAGE.

- With-last Saturday evening’s performance “Humpty-Dumpty,” which has been delighting Sydney for the past six weeks, enters upon the final four weeks of its sojourn in that city. For six months, excepting for a brief visit to Adelaide, the pantomime has been engaged in the congenial task of ministering to the merriment of the two principal cities of the Commonwealth, and henceforward an extended tour will be its portion. Brisbane and Newcastle are to be visited during July, and at the end of that month the New Zealand trip will be commenced in Wellington to take up the preparation of the pantomime for next Xmas.