GREENROOM GOSSIP

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1489, 7 November 1918, Page 27

GREENROOM GOSSIP

There are many unusual scenic achievements in the big J. C. Williamson revue “Hello, Everybody,” which is being staged at Her Majesty’s, Melbourne. One of the most spectacular of these is “Maid of the Mist,” embodying an old Indian legend of Niagara. In this is symbolised the sacrifice of an Indian maiden to the Spirit of the Falls. Two scenes are shown, the first, an Indian encampment, with squaws, braves, and Indian girls. Then in the next scene is given a wonderful representation of the Niagara Falls. This is one of the most ingenious features ever presented on the stage.

The Fullers will have three pantomimes in Australia this year. “The Babes in the Wood” will be the attraction at Sydney Opera House, “Sinbad the Sailor” will be played in Melbourne, and at the Newtown Majestic there will be a special Christmas production of “Blue Beard.”

George Bernard Shaw, in a music criticism in “The Nation” (London), declared that while he has a large charity for loose morals, he has no charity at all for loose art, and goes on: “When I hear a fiddler playing mezzo forte when his part is marked pianissimo or fortissimo (as the English orchestral fiddler is apt to do if he can trifle with the conductor), or a trombone player shirking the trouble of phrasing intelligently, I hate him. Yet I could forgive him quite easily for being a bigamist.”

A Press Association message from America states that the New York newspapers favourably comment on Miss Eileen Castle’s appearance as Yum Yum in “The Mikado.” Miss Eileen Castles is a sister to Miss Amy Castles, the well-known singer, and Miss Dolly Castles, musical comedy artist. She visited Wellington a few years ago with one of J. C. Williamson’s opera companies.

Miss Jessie Masson, who toured Australasia as solo pianist with the Selinsky-Amadio Concert Company last year, is on her way to the United States to fulfil concert engagements.

Manager of Hickville Academy of Music: How many girls with your company? Advance Agent (evasively): We advertise 25. Manager: ’Taint no use advertisin’ unless you got ’em. The poppylation of this here burg will be at the depot to check ’em up.

For variety and novelty, the performance of the Gilfain Trio is worth special mention. From a hornpipe dance to a selection of grand opera is quite a gamut to run but it is done by this clever trio with ease and finish. As a decided novelty, it introduces the only woman in vaudeville, it is claimed, who plays the old Irish bagpipes.

Giving her views on things in this part of the world and Australia in particular, Miss Sara Allgood said she loved the country and the people, and the sunshine and the laughter, but when it came .to matters artistic, she said that what marred a great deal of the effort in Australia was the haste with which everything was done. A person seems to get a good idea, but no sooner has he hatched it than he wants to give it public expression, instead of polishing and polishing until the idea is given its maximum worth. “I have seen this in so many ways since I have been here,” she says, “that I think it might do good rather than harm to mention that anything artistic loses in the speed-ing-up process.”

Writing of the premiere of “Shanghai” at Drury Lane, Harry Cohen, manager of the big house, says they took over £650. “Little Dorothy Brunton,” he adds, “got a truly wonderful send-off from the “Aussies” (over 100 Australian soldiers were present.) They tell me that her reception excelled anything ever seen in a London theatre.” The following notices from London papers show how favourably the much loved little Australian artist was received. Thus the “Observer”; “Miss Dorothy Brunton, pitting her vivacity and jollity against the woefulness of the Hoodoo (Alfred Lester) made a decisive hit.” The “Referee” says: “There was a very important arrival in Miss Dorothy Brunton, a little soubrette from Australia. She had a great Anzac reception with “Coo-ee” from all over the house, and I am glad to say thoroughly deserved it.” The “Dispatch’s” comment was: “Anzacs turned up in great force. They came there, of course, to see the entertainment, but they came also because two great favourites from the Antipodes —lvy Shilling and Dorothy Brunton —were in the company. Dorothy Brunton is a charming young actress with a delightful voice, a very pleasing personality, and a real sense of the stage. How the An-

zacs did cheer her! Well they might; she was born in Australia, the daughter of an English scene painter who had settled in Sydney, and this was her first time in England.”

Mr. Waters, of the “Business Before Pleasure” Company, offers a definition of a word used often enough, but frequently most ignorantly. “Yiddish,” he told a Sydney interviewer, “is a sort of Esperanto of the Jewish world, and stands in much the same position as the Provencal dialect in France. It is a collective term for a number of dialects and sub-dialects that differ amongst themselves but are generally intelligible to the person speaking Yiddish the world over. It is a most elastic tongue, and is continually adding to its vocabulary. I think Abe and Mawrus have contributed something to it already. You must not think that Yiddish is a cheap affair, that to speak it means that a man is an inferior sort of fellow. The Yiddish press, for instance, is one of the ‘livest wires’ in the whole newspaper kingdom. The language has produced a literature of its own, one comparable with the recent best in any tongue. It has a drama of its own, a musical comedy of its own. I remember a Yiddish version of ‘The Spring Chicken’ that was a great success. As a rule, Yiddish drama is intensely ‘realistic,’ dealing with the grim and pathetic sides of life. Do they prefer tears to laughter? Ask them if they enjoyed a Strindberg play. ‘Enjoy it?’ they will answer. ‘We cried all night. It was too lovely for words.’’”