THE STAGE AS A PROFESSION FOR GIRLS.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XVII, Issue 986, 28 January 1909, Page 18

THE STAGE AS A PROFESSION FOR GIRLS.

Miss Lillah M’Carthy, who came out to Australia as leading lady to the late .Wilson Barrett, holds an optimistic view of the stage as a profession for girls. The other day she told a “ Westminster Gazette ” interviewer that she regarded the stage as one of the best of occupations open to women. “As for it being overcrowded,” said Lillah, “ that seems to me an altogether mistaken idea. Look at the splendid field that one has. Not London or England only, but abroad — Australia, Africa, Canada —oh, everywhere one finds theatres, and where there are theatres there is the need for actresses.” Miss M’Carthy is careful to explain that she means real qualified artists, not the girl with the pretty face and figure and an inordinate vanity, who desires to exploit all three at the expense of the public. “ An untrained actress is offering an insult to her audience. . . . There

are a great number of people in the world who love to get something for nothing, so the stage becomes a field for more or less incompetents.” Miss M’Carthy, whilst advising the stage for girls, insists upon a proper training. “ A girl does not expect to obtain an engagement with the necessary knowledge of shorthand, typewriting, etc., neither would a girl walk in a court modiste’s and expect to be allowed to make a dress because she thought she could sew. They both qualify themselves for their work, and so should the apsirant for the stage.” Study for three years she regards as necessary in the branches of music, elocution, and voice production, dancing and fencing. Then, if she can obtain it, three years in a good repertoire company, and then—London, the Mecca of all players! This was Miss M’Carthy’s own experience, only that her probation was ten years instead of six—-but she began to study at 18. On the moral and domestic side the views of the actress will be interesting to women playgoers and narrowminded theatrephobes. “ A thorough stage-training teaches a woman to be a better citizen and wife; her mind is broadened, because her outlook is wider; she learns sympathy, insight into character; her travelling has made her more dependent on herself than the ordinary, stay at home, know nothing woman. Her musical training, again, is of equal value in the home circle if she, after all, decides on a domestic career. Of course, every pretty ingenue cannot mature into a leading actress, and for those

that are merely such the theatre is a ten years’ profession. But really that is the worst that can be said of it from the point of view of a suitable, capable novice.”