LEADING LADY AND SOUBRETTE.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XVIII, Issue 1046, 24 March 1910, Page 17

LEADING LADY AND SOUBRETTE.

WITH MR. GEORGE MARLOW’S DRAMATIC COMPANY. A DOUBLE-BARRELLED INTERVIEW. “Oh! this is homely,” ejaculated Miss Essie Clay, leading lady with Mr. George Marlow’s Dramatic Company, as she was ushered into the “den” occupied by the Social Editress at the “Sporting and Dramatic Review” office. “And so familiar,” chorused her companion, Miss Louise Carbasse, soubrette, in the same company. And off they rattled. “Why you have a regular picture gallery of stage favourites here. There’s Nellie Stewart, most charming of women, and Grace Palotta, Beatrice Day, Madge Macintosh, Lily Brayton—what a pity you can’t see her! —Harcourt Beatty and. Julius Knight—a splendid fellow. And”— on they chatted, one against the other, recalling something about this actor and remarking something about that actress until the interviewer began to really despair of getting them to talk about themselves—a thing they seemed extremely loth to do, if the truth is to be told. But finally she got to work with a question about the voyage across the Tasman Sea.

“A pleasant trip from Sydney? oh dear no,” they both chorused and Miss Carbasse shrugged her shoulders. “I’m a dreadful sailor,” Miss Clay said. “I went to bed as soon as we left Sydney, and only got up again just an hour before we arrived in Auckland. I didn’t have a bite to eat all the time! So you can imagine it was not a pleasure jaunt! But the scene in Auckland harbour —my first experience of it —more than repaid my woes. It was just perfect, with all the yachts and launches flitting about, and such an ideal day.”

“We didn’t even have a rest at night,” and here Miss Carbasse took up the thread, “for weakened with the effects of mal de mer, we were haunted by strange uncanny noises that conjured up weird visions of ghosts to our disordered fancies, and we lay trembling and wide awake until dawn appeared!” Then they both laughed heartily at the recollection.

Miss Clay (who is the subject of our frontispiece this week) commenced her stage career in vaudeville as a child, and was with her father’s (Harry Clay) company for some time. She was also with Walter Bentley’s Shakesperian Company, subsequently accepting an engagement with Mr. George Marlow as leading lady. “Married to the Wrong Man,” in which she makes her first appearance on the Auckland stage, is, she says, superior to the ordinary run of melodrama, and it drew like a magnet in Brisbane. As the long suffering heroine, Miss Clay says she has had many .amusing experiences. She is tied up to a bed by the villain of the play, and on one occasion one of the “gods” carried away by his emotions, cried out in heartfelt and agonising tones: “Oh, you brute! ” “It is hard to keep a straight face under such conditions,” Miss Clay said/ She also plays the “villainess” in one play. “It’s. a big bridge from heroine, is it not?” she asked the interviewer, proceeding, “but I put my whole heart and soul into whatever role I assume and adapt myself accordingly.” Miss Carbasse, whose natural' vivacity admirably fits , her for the soubrette parts she plays, is of French extraction. “They used to call me ‘Froggy’ at school,” Miss Carbasse said with a laugh,, “French was more natural to me than English. My first introduction to the stage was as Eva, in ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin,’ with Walter Sanford’s Company. Then I .was with Meynell and Gunn, afterwards' joining Miss Nellie Stewart’s company during its last New Zealand tour.” “Would you like to hear about one of our flood experiences?” asked the ladies. “We arrived at Tamworth about a quarter to six one morning, all of us hungry and dead tired after a long train journey, and found the place practically flooded out. We did not know where to stay, so we took a cab and drove through slush and mud to every hotel, but could not get accommodation. Then we thought of going to the convent, but could not get in there. It was pitiful to see the desolation everywhere. At last, after driving about for four hours, one hotel proprietor, pitying our plight, said, ‘You can sleep on the balcony, but we can’t give you any food!’ And we hadn’t had a bite since the night before! Thankful for small mercies, we wended our way to the railway sta-

tion and managed to secure a cup of tea and some bread and butter, which you can imagine we disposed of with keen relish. We went along to the theatre then, but found we could not play there under any consideration, the water in the dressing rooms being 10 feet deep. Six o’clock at night saw us in the train again, taking our departure. And very glad we were to see the last of poor Tamworth! Yes, stage life isn’t all roses, you know. We have our ups and downs, our pleasures and our disappointments, like everyone else. But there’s nothing like being cheerful to help one along.” And these two ladies are happily constituted in that respect, being evidently able to look on the bright side of everything and that, with the ready talent they both possess, should help them in their climb up the ladder of success.