STAGE NOTES.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1548, 24 December 1919, Page 46

STAGE NOTES.

An Australian thus summarises ‘ Miss Muriel Starr: —She likes to go out driving, and knows how to run a motor, boat, or car —and does it. She cares nothing for any kind of exercise except swimming; she loses less time at work than any other actress known. If the part she is studying gets in a snarl she at once stops and thinks clearly, and lays it aside for a day or two, and when her trained mind has untangled the difficulty she then goes ahead. She knows how to concentrate. She never works hurriedly unless she absolutely has to, but she works swiftly and hard. She makes mistakes like all artistic and temperamental people, and has at times to practically recast things, but usually her parts are wonderfully thought out before any rehearsal. This thinking out in advance is her tensest stage, and is what takes the most effort. She has busmess affairs to attend to and agents to see. During the war she was one of the leaders in patriotic work —a publicspirited woman, but she is distinctly determined to make money, too. Her favourite part is Mary Turner in “Within the Law,” though her best and most artistic performances to date are said to be Marcel in "The Man Who Came Back” and Luana in “The Bird of Paradise.” In conclusion, she is certainly the most popular emotional actress that has ever visited Australia. By birth a Canadian. J ■

The Allan Wilkie season is still proving a success, and what I’ve said invariably in the past, if the management can “deliver the goods” at a moderate tariff they will get the support of the playgoer. Mr. Wilkie has secured the New Zealand rights of the great drama from the pen *of Clifford Mills, entitled “The Luck of the Navy.” This has been done through the courtesy of the J. and N. Tait management. Other pieces to be produced during Mr. Wilkie’s return season will be “The Rotters,” and “A Temporary Gentleman.” ,

It will be welcome news to learn that The English Pierrots will open a tour of the Dominion early in the New Year, commencing in the South Island. Miss Elsa Langley is still a member of the combination. Mr. Victor Beck is hard at work mapping out a comprehensive tour.

In the course of a lecture in Wellington, Dr. Tillyard said that he had come to New Zealand to study the neuroptera of the thermal and other districts of the Dominion, primarily in relation to trout fisheries. The Mayflies and their larvae were a very favourite food of the trout; and, unfortunately, they were a form of food which was very soon eaten out when the trout were superabundant. In the Rotorua and Taupo districts he was sorry to say that he found the Mayfly population practically eaten out. There was’ only one type left, a little fellow, who saved himself by hiding under the stone where the trout could not get at him. We had in New Zealand, he said, the oldest and finest Mayflies in the world, the most beautiful and the largest. Our magnificent Mayfly fauna should make New Zealand a splendid country for trout; and he wished to impress on the Government the importance of preserving that fauna, not only as feed for the trout, but also for the benefit of anglers, who, if they imitated them, would find a splendid lure for trout and would get very good sport indeed. Dragon-flies were also fed upon by trout; and they should be encouraged, not only on that account, but because they in their turn fed upon mosquitoes, while being themselves absolutely harmless. The New Zealand Government, he urged, would do well to import various species of Australain dragon-flies, especially for the northern part of the North Island, so as to keep down the mosquitoes. If any of the yellow-fever-carrying mosquitoes ever effected a landing in New Zealand they would soon, he guaranteed, be dealt with by the dragon-flies; and it would therefore pay the Government well to import them even if it cost £2OO to get them over here.