GREENROOM GOSSIP.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1356, 20 April 1916, Page 36

GREENROOM GOSSIP.

All the supernumeraries employed in the war play “Under Fire” are returned New Zealand soldiers. 4: * * *

The world’s greatest picture production, the far-famed film entitled “The Birth of a Nation,” has been secured by J. C. Williamson, Ltd., for Australia. It will be serened for the first time at the Theatre Royal, Sydney, on Easter Saturday. “The Birth of a Nation” ran in New York for over a year to prices of admission the same •as charged for a star theatre production, and the attention it attracted was world-wide. The picture was produced by Griffiths, the greatest of all moving picture producers, whose salary is £20,000 per year. During its showing in New York it was witnessed by over a million people.

In the cast of “Mrs. Pretty and The Premier,” Arthur Adams’ play, which is being played in London, is included the name of Bessie Major. Miss Major was for a good many years a highly popular member of the famous Brough and Boucicault stock company in Australia.

Mr Walter Bentley has been elected president of the Actors’ Association of Australia in succession to the late Mr. George Titheradge Mr. Bentley has had a distinguished career both as actor and manager, and the appointment has been favourably recived by all branches of the profession.

Miss Dorothy Gard’ner, of Dunedin, who was last here with the Violet Dandies, and whe has been four and a-half years in Edward Branscombe’s companies, is severing her connection with that firm.

Miss Dorothy Brunton has written a soldier song which takes the form of a message to the soldiers from the girls who have no brothers to go to the front and the mothers who have no sons to offer. Andrew MacCunn is writing the music. Miss Brunton’ will introduce it on soldier nights in “So Long, Letty.”

D. J. Williams, who plays the fleeing peasant in “Under Fire” the one who calls the Germans “bloody swine” —played the lead in The Laughing Husband” in London. He was also at the London Gaiety for a long time, acting in the same casts as Connie Ediss on many occasions.

People nevr “lean” to any ether profession but the stage. They may “stumble” or “doze” to anything else, but they only “lean” towards the stage.—Leslie Stuart.

Mr. Hamilton is one of the few actors who is not enamoured of the “movies.” At least, so far as acting in them is concerned. “You see,” confessed Mr. Hamilton, whose latest hit has been secured in “Twin Beds” at the Theatre Royal, Melbourne, “I look for results of a direct kind from my acting, and I don’t get them in the movies. Now, what is the function of a comedian? To make people laugh. In acting in a picture, it is done to the accompaniment of the turning of a handle. There is not a laugh coming anywhere. Perhaps later on millions of people all over the world will laugh at the pictures, but I shall not be there to see. For this reason I found picture work most uninteresting, though very profitable from the financial point of view. This was the only reason, candidly, why I ever stuck to it.”

One of the most realistic things seen on the stage is the bomb explosion in the last act of “Under Fire,” which sends the British trench and soldiers flying in. all directions. No wonder one of the boys from Anzac, who had been dumb, suddenly found his voice return as a result of the explosion. It fills the theatre with a haze, and adds to the realism of the final scene in which the wounded soldiers are shown strewn on the rough floor of an old church, on a wall which rests unscathed an image of Christ on the crucifix. • • * ♦

A picture theatre on the Spanish mission style —to cost about £15,000, and to accommodate 1200 people is to be erected on the site now occupied by the Strand Cafe and other buildings in Gladstone Road, Gisborne, for Mr. F. Hall, of that town, who has arranged to lease it to the Fuller Proprietary.

Miss Feme Rogers, the pretty American who had to resign her part in “The Sleeping Beauty” last year at Drury Lane because of her proGerman sentiments, has married a Mr. Harold Detmold Robert, partner -In a wealthy German exporting firm in New York.

The students of the Royal Manchester College of Music come from all classes tin the social scale, and it is more commonly the case than not, says the “Manchester Courier,” that the most gifted student comes from the class which has less than its share of the good things in the world. Dr. Brodsky, the principal, with his three colleagues, gives a series of chamber concerts each year to a sustentation fund for needy students.

That J. C. Williamson’s great war play “Under Fire” will do much to stimulate recruiting is undisputable, as it aroused considerable attention in Sydney and Melbourne. A special feature of the production is an explosion scene, which fairly thrills the audience. Rarely is a production so finely mounted as “Under Fire.”

The part of the Irish Guardsman, Captain Larry Redmond, in “Under Fire” will be played by Julius Knight. Lizette Parkes will appear as Ethel Willoughby.

The two biggest sellers at the music stores of the “So Long Letty” score are the title number and “Here Come the Married Men.” One Sydney house has cleaned out just on 10,000 copies of these two songs.

A Melbourne advertisement of “Twin Beds” describes it as “the play the single people are Hocking to see to disco ver why the married ones are rushing it.” There can be no doubt that the lively comedy, in which Hale Hamilton and Myrtle Tannehill have achieved a remarkable success, has made a decided hit. For the corresponding period it has beaten “It Pays to Advertise,” which ran for eight weeks to enormous business. At the outset a “success of curiosity,” “Twin Beds” has retained its popularity by its broad humour, clever characterisation and spirited acting.

Amongst the many patriotic songs published in New Zealand since the commencement of the war none has attained the popularity of “The Soldier.” Now comes to hand a topical sea song entitled “The Sailor,” the words and music being by Henry C. Goffin, the conductor of the Wellington Salvation Army Band. “The Sailor" is a fine composition, and promises to rival in favouritism with “The Soldier.” It has a true British flavour, a natural flowing measure, and a melody which has the charm of simplicity, whilst the chorus is one in which an audience could readily join. The first edition of “The Sailor” was disposed of in Wellington alone, the second edition is now on the market in other parts of the Dominion, and a third edition is now being printed. The composition is published by H. Warren Kelly.

A New York message, dated March 7, which appears in a recent issue of the San Francisco “Examiner,” says that Maud Allen, the famous American dancer, is in a critical condition in the German hospital of New York, following an operation for appendicitis, and little hope for her recovery is held out. She had planned to sail for an extensive tour of Europe on March 11.

At His Majesty’s Theatre all this week the mechanists, property men, etc., have had a busy time preparing the great spectacular war play “Under Fire,” which will be seen for the first time on Easter Saturday. The mechanism and effects are unusual, and, apart from the setting, the nature of the undertaking is pretty well indicated in the fact that “Under Fire” has no fewer than 52 speaking parts, which is a record for drama. The story centres upon the German swoop towards Paris, with its sensational marches, battles and stormings. The cast is headed by those two favourites Julius Knight and Lizette Parkes.

There are still many managers of melodramatic companies Who hold the belief that so far from killing the legitimate, the picture shows are going to help it. Mr. Claude Allingham, a well-known English provincial man-

ager, is one of these. An optimistic view of the future of drama is taken by Mr. Allingham, who is of opinion that the public taste for that form of entertainment is keener than ever. “If you have the right article and present it in the right way,” he says, “you have nothing to fear. It is sometimes said that the moving picsures will kill the legitimate drama. I do not believe it for a moment. To my mind, the ‘movies’ are simply turning out new patrons for us. Young people go to the pictures, and so get a taste for drama. It is not long before they feel fihey want the real thing, and it is for us to see that they get it at the theatre.”

Miss Sara Allgood, who will be appearing as Peg in the first Australian production of “Peg o’ My Heart,” the

wonderful play secured by J. and N. Tait, is said to possess the loveliest brogue ever heard on the British stage. Her manner of rendering the warm, beautiful language of Yeats and Synge when she was a member of the Irish players quite enchanted the Dublin people. In England, also, her brogue was one of the great topics of comment among the critics, one writer averring that her accent was too wonderful to be natural.

Miss Eileen Sparks, a clever young Australian actress, has a fine comedy opportunity, of which she makes much in “Under Fire.”

The Tivoli Follies are due in New Zealand in a few weeks’ time. Jack Cannot still retains his place among the merry makers, and with him are associated such clever comedians and burlesque artists as Walter Weems, a black-faced comedian with a world of dry wit and sly philosophy; George Welch, the brilliant burlesque artist; Billy Rego, the inside-out comedian and acrobat. Miss Vera Pearce is now known as the “Boomerang Girl,” and retains her place as the Queen of the Follies. She has in support Miss Thelma Raye, a brilliant soubrette; Miss Marie King-Scott, who is known in America as “That Country Girl,” and a ballet of beautiful

girls selected for their talent and figures, which are always in demand in the artists’ quarters of Sydney and Melbourne. The Tivoli Follies are said to present the brightest, swiftest show known to Australia.

Drury Lane —the great home of pantomime —used to enjoy a rare distinction among London theatres. For nearly two centuries soldiers were placed on guard outside the theatre during each performance. Many thought the guard was placed there in recognition of Drury Lane as a Theatre Royal, but it was sent there originally by George 11. to prevent a threatened riot at one of the performances. The order not being countermanded, the guard was continued until 1894.