IN PERSONAL TOUCH.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1307, 13 May 1915, Page 34

IN PERSONAL TOUCH.

Mr. John Hopkins has secured the services of Madame Nyberg (Belgian operatic artist) for two concerts in Wellington on May 24 and 25. A tour may follow.

The Nellie Stewart Company disband at the termination of the New Zealand tour.

The whole of a theatrical company recently touring with the play “A Pair of Silk Stockings” met their doom in the Lusitania.

Mr. Charles H. Knight, briskest of touring managers, returned to Sydney by the Riverina on Tuesday. Mr. Knight has successfully piloted the “Babes in the Wood” through New Zealand and the best part of Australia, cities and smalls, and can show a record of quick travel that would take some beating.

Messrs. Harry Plimmer and Winter Hall, on behalf of the Plimmer-Hall Company, have handed in to Mr. W. F. Massey. Prime Minister, a cheque for £l5OO, as the first instalment of the profits of the tour in aid of the Belgian Fund. Mr. Plimmer hopes that the South Island will be at least as responsive as the North, and so enable the company to hand over a large sum at the conclusion of the tour.

The body of Mr* Charles Frohman, the noted American actor-manager, has been recovered from the Lusitania. Mr. Frohman was born in Ohio in 1860, and had an early experience in the theatrical world. His first success was “Shenandoah ” and its production in New York in 1889 laid the foundation of his fortune. Another notable production of his was “The Lost Paradise.” He was manager of numerous theatres in New York and other large cities, and had an interest in many, while he was also lessee of the Duke of York’s and Globe Theatres, London. Most of the London successes found their way into his hands for American production. He had the largest theatrical business in the world.

Miss Eva Gauthier, the FrenchCanadian mezzo-soprano, who toured New Zealand with Paul Dufault, is now in New York singing her repertoire of Javanese folksongs in the native idiom and costume. During a recent visit to Java, Miss Gauthier was strongly impressed with the exotic qualities of the native court music, and immediately set out to study it, with a view to introducing these melodies to Western civilisation. To accomplish this Miss Gauthier was obliged to enlist the cooperation of the Dutch Government, for, it is said, no white woman before her had ever dared undertake a similar mission, which meant being domiciled for years in the Sultan’s palace in the midst of the three hundred members of his harem. Miss Gauthier was received in a manner becoming cne of noble birth, without restrictions, free to do as she chose and she soon mastered the weird melodies.

“Sylvius” in the “Dominion,” in an interesting obituary of “Jimmy” MacMahon says he was always very proud over the fact that he brought Dion Boucicault to New Zealand and many a good story he used to tell of the great actor-playwright. He used to tell one of Boucicault that illustrated the wit of the gifted Irishman. This one happened in Wellington—in the Occidental Hotel to be specific. “Do you know, James,” said Boucicault to “Jimmy” one night after the show, “this is a great little town to get drunk in.” ; * “How is that?” asked “Jimmy.” “Well,” replied the actor, “this is the only place I know where y’ can

fall off the Quay and not get wet.” The reference, of course, was to Lambton Quay, which was the water front at one time, like other quays, but which was robbed of its waterside identity by the reclamation works for which Wellington, in the outer world ‘s rather noted for.

David Belasco on scenery: As long as there is a God, we cannot improve on scenery. We can do no more than seek to copy Nature and her magic. Stage futurists strain for the something new; in the name of Originality, they commit every crime against good taste and truth. Dramatic art. or stage art, lies in lifting a section of Nature from out the woodland, the sky, or the man-made city, and holding it up against the theatre’s walls.

Mr. Leo D. Chateau, general manager for Edward Branscombe (Ltd.), is on a visit to New Zealand, and saw the Violet and Red Dandies open auspiciously.