GREENROOM GOSSIP.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1402, 8 March 1917, Page 36

GREENROOM GOSSIP.

Miss Madge Surtees, the English actress, who will make a first appearance as “Sunday” at His Majesty’s Theatre on Saturday night, has been receiving flattering critic.sm everywhere. Her appearance here will be watched with interest. She is very young, but comes from a good school, the late Lewis Waller’s.

Mr. John Farrell, busine 3S manager for J. C. Williamson, Ltd., in token of his popularity w.th the members of the Musical Comedy Company, was presented with a handsome silver cigarette cabinet, prior to their return to Australia.

Mr. Fred Niblo is returning to Australia shortly for J. C. Williamson, Ltd., to play “Nothing But the Truth,” “Hit the Trail Holliday,” and other comedies.

Wh.le in America Mr. Hugh J. Ward signed with Mr. D. W. Griffith to present all his big feature films in Australia from now on. The first is “Intolerance.”

There is a probability of Sir Herbert Tree coming out to Australia next year for the J. C. Williamson firm.

Miss Surtees has strong support in her role of “Sunday.” There are many fine characters represented in the play. There are dea.r old “Towser,” “Lively,” “Davy” and “Jacky,” Sunday’s rough but good and tender guardians, who are pledged to “stand by her in the days to come as they stood together in the days that are gone.”

One result of the recent disastrous flood at Thames was the damage done to business places in the main stree„. At King’s Theatre, the popular picture house, the floor was covered with three inches of silt and water, while the mud was three feet deep in places. However, in spite of the hopeless condition of things, the manager (Mr. E. Trevor Hill) set to work w th an army of assistants and cleared up the debris so expeditiously that he was able to show the following night.

“We have extended the scope of the firm’s operations to international importance,” said Mr. Hugh J. Ward, who has just returned from America. “ ‘High Jinks’ is in London and doing wonderful business. It will easily run a year. I also arranged to produce ‘So Long, Letty,’ there, to be followed by ‘Canary Cottage’ and ‘You’re in Love.’ Another play secured for London (as well as Australia) is ‘The Thirteenth Chair,’ by the author of ‘Within the Law.’ The New York managers are anxious that the Williamson management should handle their plays in London, and this we are to do, always retaining our headquarters in Sydney. In New York the production of ‘A Royal Divorce’ is now made. We are responsible for this, and at Honolulu I met Julius Knight, and cabled to have him play his old part of Napoleon.”

During the forthcoming season of the Royal Dramatic and Comedy Company, besides the stirring comedydrama “Sunday,” that smart comedy “The Fortune Hunter” will also be staged, which will probably be followed by the electrical farce comedy “Stop Thief!”

Fayette Perry, the dainty little musical comedy star appearing in the great J. and N. Tait success “Very Good, Eddie,” in Sydney, has ap peared frequently in more serious plays. She was one of the first in America to play in “Alias Jimmy •Valentine,” the curious play which was so pathetically associated with the late O. Henry. The clever short story writer wrote the yarn on which “Alias Jimmy Valentine” was founded, but it is not so generally known that the plot was given to O. Henry by a noted safe-breaker, while they were both doing terms in an American pr son. O. Henry had been charged with and found guilty of embezzlement, but he stoutly proclaimed his innocence, and there is good reason for presuming that he never committed the crime.

“When I first arrived in America from Australia and told them that I had just finished a five years’ continuous engagement,” said Mr. Andrew Higginson on his return to Sydney, “I was met with, ‘Say, can that stuff.’ It was incredible to them. I

made a tour of the Southern States of America, and we did nothing but travel and give performances. After a performance we would get aboard the train on which we practically lived, and move on to the next town. \\ e travelled sometimes 250 miles overnight and gave a matinee next day. It is, therefore, easily understood that, apart from any other condit.ons existing in this country, the American or English actor or actress who makes good is more than anxious for the opportunity to return to Australia.”

Accoid.ng to a Sydney paper, Fuller’s pantomime, “The Bunyip,” was written nearly seven years ago, and until the middle of 1916 went begging tor a manager plucky or discerning enough to g ve'it production. The authoress, Ella Airlie, has been a consistent reader of Australian legends, and it was whilst holidaying in the bush that she got the idea of using the mystic Bunyip as basis for a panto story. Seven years she tr ed unsuccessfully to find anyone who cou.d see financial advantage in giving her Bunyip fairy story the lavish setting it required and deserved, and she was solemnly told hundreds of times that no pantomime would bo accepted unless it had one of the

popular fairy tale t.tles. She convinced Ben. J. Fuller by reading him a list of incidents in the panto, and when he had read the script he not only produced the first Australian pantomime, but made of it a production for which Australians, and Australians only, were responsible from first to last. The inside story of “The Bunyip” is to be told in moving pictures, with Ella Airlie as heroine. She flits across the film trying to sell her panto, and meets Ben Fuller. He introduces her to Nat Phill.ps, the producer. From then on the pantomime is seen in the making.

“I left Australia for England and America four and a-half years ago, to get acquainted with the latest ideas in the theatrical and moving picture world,” says Gaston Mervale, the well-known actor, who has returned to Australia under engagement to J. and N. Tait, to produce "Turn to the Right” and other successful plays, “and I have covered a remarkable lot of ground in that time. I have been associated with the leading American organisations, including Charles Froham, the Shuberts and Oliver Morosco, in the capacity of both actor and producer. In the vaudeville world I have written and produced several sketches, including one called ‘The Second Ash-Tray,’ which was played by Nance O’Neil and Alfred Hickman, who, by the way, were recently married. In the moving picture industry, my position as director of a film corporation in Philadelphia brought me in touch with the latest ideas of this remarkable business.. Serial films are very popular at present in the States, but I think the day of the long star picture of seven or eight reels is doomed; the film of the future will be limited to two and three reels.”

One of the most amazing achievements a producer has ever brought

about was the creation of the banquec bail for Belshazzar’s Feast in the Babylonian episode in “Intolerance,” which is now showing at the Theatre Royal, Melbourne. For months D. W. Griffith worked on his conception of tins colossal scene, the spectacle of which is almost paralysing to the imagination. It extends for over a mile —column upon column, supporting the presentiments of mammoth e.ephants, stretching away into the distance. The eye gazes up at the roof to the height of 350 feei, and 10,000 people fill the banquet hall, into wh.ch are driven hundreds of chariots, whilst from above the monster elephants spout perfumes upon the moving mass of people below. This set cost £40,000 to make. ♦ * * * The late Charles Fro? man was known to his friends as a master of epigram. Some of his distinctive sayings are these: “The best seat at a theatre is the paid one.” “An ounce of imagination is worth a pound of practicability.” “The man who makes up his mind to corner things generally gets cornered.” “You cannot monopolise theatres while there are bricks and mortar.” “When I hear of another theatre being built I try to build another.” “No successful theatrical producer ever died rich. He must make money for everybody but himself.” “Great stage successes are the plays that take hold of the masses, not the classes.” * * * * Miss Minnie Love takes the title role in “The Pink Lady,” J. C. Williamson’s musical comedy, which is being presented in Sydney at present. * • * * Talleur Andrews is coming out to Australia again under engagement to H. D. Mclntosh.

Letters from Australia are full of praise for the Fuller pantomime “The Bunyip,” which is having a wonderfully successful season in Sydney. The book was written by an Australian, Miss Ella Airlie, and altogether it is a real Australian pantomime, a worthy tribute to the enterprise of Mr. Ben. J. Fuller. Miss rearl Ladd is said to be most enchanting as the Princess Wattle Biossom, who is cnanged into uie terrible ■\ounyip,' while Mr. Vilneis xirnold, as me chiet Gnome, Übcs n.s ime to spxenuiu enect. xmm tnese artists are weii-rememoerea G.ioert ctiiti smuvaii artists.' miss v>jac:>siiie j. Vvnu iiiipiessea everyone so iavwuxctuxj' vvitii ner singing uuxiiig a tour oi New zxeaiand with J. u. \vilnaiuson's Musical Comedy Company io.sc year, is the prmc.pai toy, and uer imposing ngure makes ner an iueui one. miss Daisy Merritt —setting aside ah traditions —is the dame> and Mr. Nat iTinlips is the producer. Another vaudev.he favourite in Miss Neilie Kone also ngures conspicuously in the roie of a swagger. The specialities, in addition to gorgeous spectacular scenes, include the Marvellous Manchurians, who eclipse everything in the acrobatic line.

Gerald Gr.ffin, the Irish tenor, who was in New Zealand on the Fuller circuit, is back again on the boards in the United States.

When Phineas Cohen sat from nine to five amid the musty documents of Melbourne Titles Office (says a Melbourne scribe), he did not think that a talent for drawing and a rare taste for colour effects wcuid eventually transplant him into an atmosphere of frivolous art. When Ph.neas (others -call him Phil) joined the West Australian Government service as draughtsman in the railways construction branch under Chief Engineer O’Connor he gradually put less interest in railways and more in gorgeous colour schemas. After eight years’ service he quitted to paint beautiful clothes for lovely ladies. The trick of painting gorgeous things on filmy garments came to him quite readily, and he took his talent to J. C. Williamson’s, who immediately set

him to work on his production of “Alice in Wonderland.” Ever since then Cohen’s deft brush has been busy on the theatrical productions. He has painted the silk and satin costumes for every J. C. Williamson pantomime. His work in the three delightful ballets of “So Long, Letty,” is a recent example of his admirable taste. Joining the Fuller firm for the “Bunyip” pantomime production, he found a big job before him, and worked strenuously for many weeks. He painted a thousand costumes on silk and satin for the pantomime, covering nearly 5000 yards of material, some of it valued at £2 2s. a yard. A false movement and the materia! would have been spoilt, for there can be no erasing or washing out when painting on filmy material. Cohen’s brush turns from plain white to golden wattle or red waratah. A tough proposition was the paint'ng of a hundred pairs of tights. These came to him, of course, ready made and Cohen’s art was to paint the loose silk, one-half of which would natur ally be all the time invisible.

Mrs. Sutherland, of Auckland, whose energies ha\e augmented war funds considerably, is hard at work rehearsing the musical extravaganza “Cbilperic,” for production in May. Amongst the performers will be Mrs. P. Cole, Misses M. Knight, Wheeler, Grosvenor, Messrs. Meredith. Warbrick, R. Yates. Cockerill, and Evan McCormack. The ballets will he under the direction of Miss T )aphne Knight.

The tenth week of “The House That Jack Built” was commenced at Her Majesty’s, Melbourne, on Saturday night, 24th, and the big pantomime is going as strongly as ever.

“Good Gracious, Annabelle,” the opening comedy of the Marie Tempest season at the Theatre Royal. Melbourne, at Easter, has been delighting packed houses for some months at the Republic Theatre, New York, and in London proved one of Mies Tempest’s greatest successes. It is described as “a delightful package of mirth, magic, and romance.”

The great film, “Intolerance.” will introduce once more two favourites of the screen who had prev’ously been seen in “The Birth of a Nation.” These are Lilian Gish and Mae Marsh. Though but forty people figure in the cast in the programme, thousands of artists enact the four stories that make up the one big theme. The magnitude of the spectacle mav be gauged from the fact that 67.000 people were concerned in the acting part alone, whilst many more thou-

sands were associated with the work ing side of the proauction. Those who have seen the film consider it on a more stupendous scale than even “The Birth of a Nation,” which is saying a great deal.