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New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1514, 1 May 1919, Page 34

Boyd Irwin, who has appeared here on many occasions with J. C. Williamson companies, sailed for America last month.

The engagement is announced of Mr. Ray Fuller (the courteous young treasurer who was in office at the Auckland Opera House under the late Mr. George Stephenson’s regime and is now at the head office, Wellington) to Miss Jessie Seagar, of Auckland.

London actors and actresses, representing their trade union, met West End musical comedy managers recently in a conference on better conditions for the first time in stage history. Among the delegates of the Actors’ Association were Mr. Sydney Valentine, Mr. Norman McKinnel, Mr. Nelson Keys, Miss Madge Mackintosh, and Mr. Alfred Lugg, the secretary, while the managers included Sir Alfred Butt, Mr. Tom B. Davis, Mr. Robert Evett, and Mt Edward Laurillard. “We explained to the managers our model contract,” said Mr. Lugg after the conference, “which includes payment for rehearsals and for each performance with a minimum wage of £3 a week and the provision of costumes by the management. The managers were surprised at some of the unfair contracts we showed them, and said that, in principle, our demands were just, but that they must confer among themselves and meet us again.”

Mr. Thomas Tilton, the well-known actor and producer, who played Mr. Brinsley Sheridan in “Tom Moore” with Allen Doone at the Theatre Royal at Sydney recently, has succumbed to influenza. The deceased was producer of “The Barrier,” “Mr. Wu,” and many other popular dramas, including a number of stock pieces for Ben. Fuller, George Marlow and George Willoughby, notably “The Monk and the Woman,” “From Convent to Throne,” and “The Sins of Society.” The late Mr. Tilton, who was a native of Auckland, was highly esteemed among the theatrical profession (states the Sydney “Daily Telegraph”), one of whom, Miss Pearl Helmrich, he married. At the time of his death his wife was seriously ill with influenza in Melbourne.

Either the dramatic censorship is tame enough nowadays to feed from the hand, or else the bedroom scene in the new Strand Theatre play, “Scandal,” has been done with uncanny skill, for the play has got past St. James’ Palace without the slightest challenge, remarks “London Opinion.” And yet it has a scene of intense daring. A man has been claimed by a girl as her husband, to suit her own temporary purpose; and he, to suit his own purposes, insists on continuing the relationship. Arthur Bourchier plays the big bold man in question, and Kyrle Bellew is “the worst spoilt young woman in London,” who thus meets her tamer.

Ben. J. Fuller’s elder daughter, Joan, sings a specialty number, “Loo From Woolloomooloo,” in the firm’s pantomime, “Babes in the Wood.”

The general costuming of “Oh! Oh! Delphine,” the J. C. Williamson new musical comedy, to be seen in Auckland shortly, interpreted by the popular Royal Comic Opera Company, is said to be exceptionally fine. Report speaks with bated breath at the wonder of some of the dresses. These are displayed with little short of Oriental abandon. It is the general opinion that in the matter of costuming, the big firm have gone one better in “Oh! Oh! Delphine” than their previous best.

On his return from America, Mr. George Tallis said that one of the most remarkable circumstances in connection with the phenomenally successful production of “Three Faces East” was the bond of secrecy that* was observed regarding the ending of the play. Playgoers tacitly agreed not to divulge the secret, and the newspaper writers, too, co-operat-ed by not divulging the details of the plot. The mystery added to the attractiveness of the performance and helped to maintain the interest of those who had not yet witnessed the drama.

Miss Emelie Polini, who is now making a success of Gina Ashling in the J. and N. Tait production of “Eyes of Youth” at the King’s Theatre, Melbourne, spent much of her enforced holiday during the influenza outbreak in Sydney in laying the foundation for a new play. Miss Polini is at present an amateur playwright, but there is no knowing when she may become a professional, with a nice cheque for royalties arriving every mail. Her best effort to date is now under the consideration of a prominent New York manager, and a recent communication from him suggested that the play was likely to be accepted and produced at an early date. Miss Polini has now written two or three comedies, and with each day’s work at the new piece she feels that she is gaining in observation and inventiveness, and is getting a greater control of her plot.

Mr. George Marlow, who retired from active theatrical management some time ago, proposes to visit England in search of theatrical novelties (states a Sydney paper), and his racing string will soon be auctioned. He will be accompanied to England by his wife, Miss Ethel Buckley.

The vestibule of Drury Lane Theatre was transformed into a temporary chapel recently, when the Bishop of London held a dedication service and unveiled a memorial tablet to 250 actors, playwrights, musicians and stage workers who had fallen in the war. The panel bearing the memorial formerly had on its reverse side an inscription commemorating the visit of the Kaiser to a command performance of “Money” at the theatre in 1910. The Bishop of London said we owed a great deal to the theatrical profession during the war. How many thousands of pounds had they raised by their acting for the Red Cross; how many wounded soldiers had they cheered by their acting again and again, and in their own profession they had acted a part in this war second to none. After the unveiling, “Land of Hope and Glory,” and the National Anthem were sung, and finally from the vestibule came the sound of the “Last Post,” played by trumpeters of the Guards.

It is not often that an artist is able to play in real life the part he enacts on the stage. Alfred Frith, of the J. C. Williamson New English Musical Comedy Company, is the exception in this record. In “Going Up,” which is being staged in Melbourne, Mr. Frith appears as Robert Street, who wins fortune and the girl he loves by being the victor in an aeroplane contest. In Christchurch during the company’s recent visit, Mr. Frith really indulged in an aeroplane flight. Piloted by Captain Mercer, of the Sockburn Aviation School, Mr. Frith ascended to a height of over 2000 feet, and experienced all the thrills and sensations of the real thing in aviation instead of the stage variety. On landing, the actor was photographed in the aeroplane, and, as he declared to those to whom he handed the picture for inspection, “There’s no stage fake about that, is there?”

Madame Adelina Patti, the most famous prima donna the world has ever seen, has just celebrated her 76th birthday. In her castle at Craig-y-Nos (the Rock of Night), buried in the heart of rugged mountains, the event was marked by a festival of song and dance, but the great singer herself passed the day in the utmost quiet of her room in a great south-coast hotel, facing a grey sea and closely guarded from all visitors. Her friends and admirers all over the world will learn with real sorrow that Madame Patti is lying ill, and is not allowed by her doctors to receive visitors. Her -husband, Baron Cederstrom, is with her, and her room is guarded by an inflexible man servant, who will allow no visitor to enter. Until quite recent years she preserved to a remarkable degree the wonderful carriage and deportment which always distinguished her appearance on the stage, so that it was difficult to realise that, at that time, her age was approaching seventy. She once told an interviewer the secret of her youthfulness. “Up to forty,” she said, “I stinted myself of nothing. I loved the very joy of living, and I revelled in the beauty of everything around me. After forty, however, I began to adopt a comparatively strict way of living. Since then I have eaten no red meat and have drunk only white wine and soda. When I feel weak, a glass of champagne serves me as a wonderful restorative.”