GREENROOM GOSSIP.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1308, 20 May 1915, Page 36

GREENROOM GOSSIP.

DAISY JEROME CHAMPIONS HER FRIENDS. “I Eke your country —the climate’s great —I like your people; I’m glad to be back and I hope to come again! Everyone knows this could only be prefatory of Daisy Jerome and no one else! Daisy Jerome, who applied the spark to the “Babes in the Wood” pantomime. She is well named the “live-wire comedienne.” Nothing lacks superfluous with her. Chippy and chic, petite and piquant, Miss Jerome has an individuality quite her own. “This is Josephine Gassman,” she rattled on to a “Review” representative, “of the Picanninies, you know. Could make a big living without them, too —great coon singer, a show in herself. Some scurrilous tongues have said she and the picanninies—well, don’t harmonise. Scandalous, I call it. Why, she’s better than a mother to them. Anyone who won’t take in the pics, when travelling—well, then, Miss Gassman doesn’t go either. She’s had them for years—their parents live in America and recognise what she has done for them. All they are, they owe to Miss Gassman and her husband. She taught them singing, and he dancing. That’s his special l.ne. He’s a wonder at it. They couldn’t be better cared for; many a white child might envy them. Every attention given them, and all have their banking account. Marvellous little dancers they are! Think of the patience! Why, Miss G-assman’s husband was for years perfecting them just in two difficult steps. And see what a magnificent turn they give. No wonder their mother says ‘Stay with Miss Gassman.” Just then one of the picanianies, the favourite Bill Bailey, sought Miss Gassman’sfeaid. Resplendent in his modish red? velvet gown and hat, his feathers had taken on a coquettish twist . and had to be trained to the perpendicular. His manners were beyond reproach, and he proudly exhibited a fine gold ring which Miss Gassman had presented to him that day. He has been with her sixteen years,, so- is qui„e a fixture in the Gas'sman. entourage.

A! call for Miss Jerome —and hurriedly ruffling her ruddy curls and picking up one of her many canes .(.“one of my eccentricities”) she bustled out to advise the house to “Always take a walk with Daisy, for Daisies won’t tell!”

Arthur Stigant, the dame in J. C. W.lEamson’s pantomime “Cinderella,” .considers the true test of success the dame impersonation is whether the women laugh at him. Anyone, he contends, can make a man laugh.

Mr. Graham Moffat, of “Bunty Pulls the Strings” fame, will be over in New Zea .and shortly with “A Scrape o’ the Pen.” Mr. Moffat says any doubts he may have entertained when on the other side of the world about the wisdom of presenting Scottish life in Australian theatres have been entirely dispelled by the reception of “Bunty Pu.ls the Strings.”

A Red Cross concert at the Albert Hall, London, organised by Mme. Clara Butt, realised £BOOO. The King and Queen and other members ci the Royal Family were present.

From Sydney “Theatre”: “What is the greatest of all dame parts?” Wilk.e Bard once asked Arthur Stigant. “The Widow Twankey in ‘Jack and the Beanstalk ’ ” I answered, unhesitat.ngly. ‘ Why?” he demanded. I paused for a reason; but before I had arrived at it he said, “I’ll tell you —Sympathy. First of all there is her poverty; then there is her love for the cow; and the love of her son — her delight in his getting the jewels. All through the pantomime you like her because beneath all her grotesqueness there is a human, sympathetic note that is irresistible.” I remember Wilkie Bard playing the Baron in “The Babes in the Wood” with me once, and he point-blank refused to speak the lines where he had

to tell the robbers to kill the children. He had it changed to a humorous “Take them away and lose them!” “Do you think,” he afterwards explained to me, “that I would have every youngster at the matinees regarding me as a wicked old man! I want them to laugh at me; and children will only laugh at anyone they like.”

Miss Nancye Stewart had a bigcall on her talent in Dunedin. Owing to her mother’s indisposition she had to take the role of Du Barry at short notice, and so marked was her success that she was overwhelmed with congratulations behind the curtain and greeted with storms of applause before it. “I feel very proud qf her indeed,” Miss Nellie Stewart told an interviewer, “for ‘Du Barry’ is one of the heaviest roles I have ever undertaken, and to think that a girl still in her teens, and with only a few months’ stage experience, could portray the character in such a convincing fashion fills me with amazement. The hoarseness

from which I was suffering has now disappeared, and I am quite well enough to play the part, but prefer that the public shall have another opportunity of seeing my daughter in the character. I propose being present at to-night’s performance, and, who knows,” said Miss Stewart with a smile, “I may be able to pick up a few points from the new star.”

An amusing incident happened during a Scottish tour of “A Scrape o’ the Pen.” The company was at Jedboro’ when an old lady, still wonderfully well preserved, came up and informed the manager that her name was the same as one of the characters. It turned out afterwards that Mr. Moffat had used her —Taffy Knot —for one of his characters little dreaming that an old lady who sold Taffy to him in his boyhood could be still alive. However, here she was, hale and hearty at 92, and although Mr. Moffat had not made the character a very nice one, still she sat in front and thoroughly enjoyed the performance.

Allen Doone is due to open in Auckland on June 8.. A tour of the Waikato follows, and the remainder of the itinerary will be played as follows: —Gisborne, June 28-July 3; Napier, July 5-7; Hastings, July 8; Dannevirke, July 9; Palmerston North, July 10-12; Hawera, July 13: New Plymouth, July 14-15; Stratford, July 16; Eltham, July 17; Wan ganui, July 19-21; Feilding, July 22; Masterton, July 23-24; Wellington, July 26-August 10; Christchurch, August 12-25; Timaru, August 26; Dunedin, August 27-September 2; Invercargill, September 3-4.

Mr. Farquhar Young, of* Christchurch, the well-known singer and elocutionist, has been appointed sole adjudicator in both musical and elocutionary sections at Westland Competitions, commencing in Hokitika on June 3 next. Mr. Young will also judge the elocutionary section at the West Coast Competitions in September.

J. and N. Tait, the well-known entrepreneurs, have engaged a Belgian Band to make a tour of Australia, commencing in the Westralian capital on June Ist. The Band consists of twenty-eight members, comprising some of the 'finest instrumentalists chosen from the chief bands of Brussels, Antwerp and Ostend, and is further strengthened by about half a dozen Engl.sh players. The conductor is M. Phillipe Meny, a well-known Belgian musician of great reputation, and included in the combination are three celebrated Belgians, Mdlle. Viceroy (soprano), M. Florent Hoogstoei (violinist), and M. Albert Goossens (baritone). J. and N. Tait mention that they experienced great initial difficulties in securing the various members of the Belgian band. Ow.ng to the disturbed state of the country under the German occupation the problem of communication occasioned great worry and necessarily prolonged the negotiations. By patience and persistence, however, the firm was able to secure the particu-

lar artists it needed and book them for a tour embracing all the Australian States and New Zealand.

Miss Irene Dillon, a young Australian, who began ±n a small way with the J. C. Williamson management, has just completed a successful season as the pnnc pal girl in the pantomime “Robinson Crusoe,” at the Grand Theatre, Leeds.

The Royal Strollers, who have achieved a remarkable success in Melbourne, have commenced a short Victorian country tour opening at Geelong, and will subsequently appear in Ballarat, Bendigo, and other wellknown centres. Their Queensland season is due to commence in Brisbane on June sth, and later they will v.sit the chief cities in Central Queensland. Sydney will see the artists on July 10th, and at the conclusion of this season the Stroders will come to New Zealand.

The late Mr. James MacMahon brought the first phonograph to Australia, and was one of the first to introduce the biograph. He is also credited with being the first to engage in the moving picture business m Sydney, and when the idea was in its infancy he ran a kinetoscope entertainment in Pitt Street.

The New York papers are still busy discussing the spy drama, “The Man who Stayed at Home,” staged in that cny as “Tne White Feather,” > one or two of the pro-German papers having adopted the att.tude that its production violates the neutrality of the United States. Tne result is a seething controversy in the press, and packed houses at every performance, me title, “The White Feather,” is derived from the fact that the man who stayed at home” instead of going to the war is handed a white leather, the badge of cowardice. It is unknown at the time that he is engaged in unearthing a nest of German spies on the East Coast of England, and some thrilling incidents are enacted before the sensational climax is reached. The piay will shortly be staged at the Theatre Royal, Melbourne.

“Sylvius,” the well-known dramatic critic of the “Dominion,” airs a popular grievance under the arresting title of “Stop Thief”: —It is noticeable (he says) that as soon as any New Zealand artist becomes prominent the Australian papers claim that arLst as their own. One very glaring case was that of Miss Rosina Buckmann, the talented soprano, who appeared both in concert and opera before she set foot in Australia, and was hailed as a singer with a future before Melba “discovered’ her. Miss Buckmann appeared in New Zealand as Suzuki in “Madame Butterfly” with Bel Sorel and Amy Castles, and no better exponent of the role has been seen in Australasia. Then when Melba found a p.ace for her in the opera company she organised under arrangement with J. C. Williamson, Ltd., Miss Buckmann was formally acclaimed an Australian, and since her successes in London the Sydney papers have commandeered the fair s.nger as one of their own. Why, when Miss Buckmann left Wellington for England her friends gave her a benefit which largely helped her to make the trip possible. It yielded nearly £2OO. She then returned to Sydney to fulfil an engagement to sing in “Samson and Delilah” with the “Philharmonic.” She was there tendered anothex* benefit, which y.elded—nil. The latest instance of unwarranted newspaper naturalisation is a Sydney paper’s mistake in calling Nora D’Argel an Australian. Austral.a does not know Nora D’Argel, the operatic prima donna. She was the daughter of the late Mr. Charles Long, a New Zealand commercial traveller, whose home was in Wellington. Miss Nora Long (now D’Argel) received her vocal tuition from Sister Mary Agnes, of St. Mary’s Convent, one of the most successful teachers of singing Wellington has known. Miss Long had then a very

gweet and pure, but not a very strong, voice, but whenever she sang at concerts, hers was a voice to remember. It had a tender timbre that appealed to the heart —it was a voice with a soul. Her training for grand opera was due to the extreme kindness of some English people, who made a protegee of Nora, saw her through her training in Paris, and eventually secured for her an opening in the artistic world, which she has made such good use of. Now Nora D’Argel is hailed as an Australian! Poor little New Zealand!

David Belasco, praised at a luncheon in New York upon the accuracy of a medieval stage setting, answered modestly: “My accuracy is not wonderful —it is merely the result of hard work, of long study. “I try not to resemble Skaggs, you know. “Skaggs, a great American manager, dropped into one of his theatres and found a religious play, ‘The Crucifixion,’ in process of rehearsal. Skaggs looked on intently for half an hour, then he frowned and said: “ ‘Who are them chaps with the whiskers?’ “ ‘They are the Twelve Apostles, Mr. Skaggs,’ the local manager politely answered. “ ‘Twelve!’ growled Skaggs, ‘Twelve! What kind of a showing do twelve make on a stage the size of this? Put fifty apostles on the job’.”—“Detroit Press.” * * * * Some stage managers, thinking solely in terms of the stage, never permit a character to leave a room without turning around at the door and casting a backward and usually meaningless glance. That people usually walk straight out of a door without a backward glance seemingly never influences these directors to seek some slight illlusion of truth in this regard. SOUTHERN STAGE NOTES.

(By “Lorgnette.”)

WELLINGTON, May 17. It was originally intended that the Dominion tour of the J. C. Williamson pantomime “Cinderella” should commence in Auckland, but it has now been decided to open in Wellington on June 8. This year’s annual will, it is said, be a more gorgeous attraction than its predecessors, being brimful of beautiful ballets and marches, whilst the specialties that are introduced will excel anything of their kind yet seen here. The musical numbers include some of the very latest English and American song hits. The following dates have been booked for the “Cinderella” tour: — Wellington, June 8-16; Palmerston North, 17; Wanganui, 18-19; Hawera, 21; New Plymouth, 22; Auckland, 23July 2; Gisborne 5-6; Napier, 8-9; Christchurch, 12-21; Tlmaru, 22; Oamaru, 23; Dunedin, 24-29; Invercargill, 30-31. The Wellington Amateur Operatic Society held its annual meeting on May 7 the chair being occupied by Mr. T. M. Wilford, M.P. In moving the adoption of the report and balance sheet, Mr. Wilford congratulated the society upon its sound financial position and the success that attended its efforts during the past season. In the two operas presented (“The Geisha” and “Paul Jones”) the society had reached a very high artistic level, and this was due in great measure to the artistic ability of the producer, Mr. Tom Pollard. The following officers were elected for the ensuing year:—President, Hon. A. L. Herdman; vice presidents, Messrs. T. M. Wilford, M.P., P. Levi, W. H. Atack, A. E. Mabin, A. Newton; committee, Dr. N. Hales, Messrs. V. R. Meredith, V. Rhind, D. A. Kenny, D. Bridge, H. Plimmer, W. Smith, W. S. Shaw, W. G. Wickham; hon. treasurer, Mr. W. Fraser; hon. auditor, Mr. E. W. Hunt, F.1.A.N.Z., F.1.A.V.; hon. secretary, Mr. E. B. Vance.

His Majesty’s- Theatre was packed to the doors on Sunday evening, when the Wellington Professional Orchestra gave its second concert of the

season. The programme included Mendelssohn’s overture “Ruy Blas,” Suppe’s overture “Pique Dame,” Gounod’s fantasia “Faust,” and Boccherini’s “Minuet” for strings. A feature of the concert was the orchestra’s rendering of the prelude to Giodano’s opera “Siberia,” which was performed for the first time in New Zealand. Mr. W. H. Bowman also contributed a cornet solo. The Violet Dandies continue to appear nightly in the Town Hall Concert Chamber to large and appreciative audiences. Mr. Joseph Biascheck’s season at the Opera House was a fairly successful one. The “Court Courts” opened a farewell season of seven nights at the Grand Opera House last Saturday evening. The programme was greatly appreciated by the large audience present. Mr. Beaumont Smith has quite recovered from his recent operation, and, accompanied by Mrs. Smith, sailed for Sydney by the Ulimaroa last Thursday. Mr. Paul Stanhope’s Revue Company is the star attraction at His Majesty’s Theatre this week.