BORN TO COMEDY.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XVIII, Issue 1036, 13 January 1910, Page 17

BORN TO COMEDY.

MR. BERT GILBERT’S INTERESTING CAREER. THE WILLIAMSON PRODUCTIONS. Mr. Gilbert Hazelwood, or give him the stage name by which he is more fully and favourably known, Mr. “Bert Gilbert” has been before the public from his very infancy. He made his first appearance on the stage as the babe in Pizarro, being, of course, carried on. He was then only three months old. On that occasion he convulsed the audience, as he has convulsed hundreds of audiences since, by his behaviour, yelling vehemently at the most critical moment in the tragedy, and covering the leading members of the company with confusion. It was a successful first appearance in its way, but who amongst those present could have dreamt of the many successes that were to follow it in the maturer years of the infantile performer. Born to the stage and to comedy, possibly best describes Mr. Bert Gilbert’s mission in life. Off the stage he is a quiet, mannerly, well-spoken citizen, with the habits, tastes and demeanour of a gentleman, and little or nothing about him to denote the profession he follows. On the stage he is a humorist of the first water, with an infinite capacity for tickling both the eyes and the ears of his audience. He combines the most admirable fooling with an archdeacon’s gravity of features and of manners, and has a merry wit of his own that makes him a favourite wherever he goes. “Dull care” takes a . back seat, or vanishes altogether, in his presence. He is a man to be admired, esteemed and made much of, because there are so few men like him. It is not too much to say that he is the life of the New Comic Opera Company and that more than half the success of the “King of Cadonia” amj of “Havana” —those brilliant musical comedies that have taken Auckland by storm —are due to his . genius. Mr. Gilbert Hazelwood comes of an old and talented theatrical family, well-known in London and the Midlands. His ancestors on both sides of the family were well-known members of the profession. His greatgrandfather, Mr. H. B. Edwin, was the original Ezekiel Homespun at the Drury Lane Theatre. His grandfather, on his father’s side (Mr. Colin H. Hazelwood), was a playwright of more than ordinary notoriety, who created a record by writing a play a week for the Britannia Theatre, Hoxton, North London,-for something like ten years—truly a .prolific and unexampled performance. His grandfather, on his mother’s side, Mr. Huggins, was proprietor of the Rother-ham-Doncaster circuit. In those days, it should be explained, proprietors of companies travelled round the country, visiting theatres in which they had proprietary rights and playing for two or three months • (at each theatre, hence the' word “circuit.” Mr. Hazelwood’s father, Mr. Henry Colin Hazelwood, was manager of the Highbury Barn Theatre, North London, and afterwards lessee of the West Bromwich Theatre, and also manager for Mr. Brewster at the Star Theatre, Wolverhampton, of which he eventually became lessee. His mother, Ruth Edwin, was a tremendous favourite with London and Wolverhampton theatregoers, and was admittedly one of the finest and most convincing actresses of her day. When interviewed last - week by a “Review” representative, Mr. Bert Gilbert (to again give him his stage mane) chatted freely of his past career. He explained that he had made the stage his profession .from his earliest days, “walking on” in juvenile parts when quite a little fellow and graduating through stock plays such as “East Lynne,” Little Joe (the dramatised version of “Bleak House”) to the comedy parts he has since made his speciality. That he was doing good work in the Old Country and was highly thought of, is proved by the fact that rather more than two years ago he was selected by Mr. J. C. Williamson as the leading comedian for the Pantomime Company of that year, and that, when he was invited to come to Australia and accepted the invitation, he left ■behind him engagements for three years, which will have to be filled on his return to the Old Country. He first visited New Zealand with the Humpty Dumpty Pantomime Company two years ago, but unfortunately met with an accident during one of the Auckland performances that placed him hors de combat for the greater part of the New Zea-

land season, during which he was kept a close prisoner in a private hospital and threatened with the loss of one eye. Mr. Gilbert’s experiences of New Zealand have, consequently, been so far of a more dr less depressing character, and he confessed to the interviewer that he was none too favourably impressed -by the reception accorded the “King of Cadonia ’ company on the opening night of its present season at His Majesty’s. “But I thought they gave you a great reception,” said the interviewer, “you had a crowded house, had you not?”

“Yes, but the audience gave us one and all the impression of being coldly critical,/?We all had the same feeling about if. I do not think that I ever played before an audience that kept so thoroughly cool and was so undemonstrative. It seemed as if they were saying ‘We’ve heard a good deal about you; this play has been boomed up tremendously; we don’t believe half what we’ve read about it, and we’re here to see if the other half is true.’ It made it fearfully uphill work for all of us.” “But surely that was exceptional?”

“Yes, I suppose it was. The attitude of the Monday night’s audience was really cold; that of the Tuesday night was just the reverse.” “And since then?”

' “Well, we have no reason to complain of any lack of generous treatment, the atmosphere has changed completely.” Asked how Australian and New Zealand audiences compared with English audiences, Mr. Gilbert said he thought, if anything, the Australian public were more responsive, but none the less critical. He expressed surprise at the way in which Australasians patronise the theatres. It was no small thing, he said, to run a play like the “King of Cadonia” for nine nights in succession in a city like Auckland, with a population of less than 100,000. There were very few English managers, he said, who would venture to act similarly in towns of the same size in the Old Country.” “By the way,” said the interviewer, “that reminds me of a question I should like an expression of opinion upon. We have one or two very Superior People in this country—‘critics’ they call themselves —who are for ever running the Williamson companies down, and who are fond of. telling us that the plays and the artistes Mr Williamson sends to New Zealand are only second and third rate and that we seldom get a play presented or mounted as it should be

and as it is presented at Home. How does that tally with your experience?” “1 1 do not know of a single manager at Home,” Mr. Gilbert said, speaking' with marked deliberation, “who- would take the risks that Mr. Williamson does. There is not an English manager who would take a company such as ours (I think there are about 127 of us all told, including mechanists, property men, orchestra, etc) and ship it, with all the scenery, dresses and appliances,- across from London to America. The cost would be about the same as from Melbourne to Auckland; he would deem the risk too great, although the population of the States is at least 60 times as great as yours. And when- it comes to ‘mounting’ a play, I tell our people every time I write Home, T Only wish they could' see the scale of magnificence in which everything is done here. Cost is quite a secondary matter with Mr. Williamson I can assure you. Just take the Court dresses in the ‘King of Cadonia.’ You can go round to the back of the stage and examine them yourself. Every dress —and all are made of the very best material —carries a. coat of arms —all different and all embroidered by hand in Melbourne. Why the attention to detail is simply wonderful. I should say those Superior People of whom you were speaking don’t know what they are talking about. So far as I have experience of them the Williamson productions compare more than favourably with English productions of the same class.

Mr. Gilbert is a great reader. His favourite authors are Charles Dickens and W. W. Jacobs, of whqse works he has made a very careful study. He falls back upon Dickens in moments of mental rest and recreation and finds much to amuse and interest in the volumes he has read over and over again. In his Musical Comedy parts his favourite characters are the Duke Alexis in the “King of Cadonia,” “Nix,” the Bo’sun in “Havana,” and Mickey O’Dowd, in Sydney Jones’ opera “My Lady Molly.” He was, by the way, the first to play in the latter part. The two former characters offer opportunities for consistent work right through, and those who have seen him in the parts must admit that he has made a careful study of both. In the character of “Nix” he is the living image of one of W. W. Jacobs’ old skippers and carries himself as only the versatile actor who has made an intelligent study of the character could do. There is nothing forced or unreal, nothing exaggerated or

overdrawn; the conception is (true to the life.

And that Danse des Apaches. If the reader has seen Mr. Gilbert in the character of the Parisian rough he must admit that here again is another great conception—lifelike and realistic. The dance is not lacking in a certain grace, despite its brutality. It is one in which the passions predominate, fierce love striving with deadly hate. In it Mr. Gilbert sinks all trace of himself and becomes the typical Apache so long the terror of decent Parisian Society. Those who have had the opportunity of seeing the dance, as it is given in London, say that MJr. Gilbert has a better conception of its character and possibilities, although he has had to figure it out for himself from a mere verbal description, than its originators.