Greenroom Gossip

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1572, 10 June 1920, Page 30

Greenroom Gossip

Ethel Levey, with her husband, Graham White, the airman, is running the Flying Club at Hendon. It is a most wonderful club, and the dancing there is simply heavenly, according to Mr. Bob Greig. They have an orchestra composed entirely of ukeleles and the Hawaiian scenery is lovely. There is a. volcano, and while you dance it throws up the most wonderful lights, and bursts into mimic eruption. The club provide all kinds of amusement, as golf, etc., covered courts for tennis, and is residential for bachelors. It is one of the show places around London.

“The Bing Boys on Broadway,” now being produced in Melbourne by J. C. Williamson, Ltd., is not a revue, nor is it connected in any way with “The Bing Boys are Here,” which was played over here some years ago. It is described as being “the adventures of Lucifer Bing and his cousin Potifer in America’.’ In the London production the leading roles were taken by Violet Loraine (who is well remembered in Australia as principal boy of the J. C. Williamson pantomine. “Puss in Boots”), and George Robey.

Mr. Oscar Asche is one of several theatrical managers who expresses his determination to boycott German music and plays, other than the old class ics. Asked whether any leading theatrical producers were contemplating staging post - war German plays, Mr. Asche replied that he believed the matter had been considered. He said: “As soon as a big success comes along, someone will very likely stage it in English, and then other managers may follow suit for commercial reasons. But, personally, I look upon it as a matter of good taste not to produce anything written by a German since the war broke out.” “The Better ’Ole” is proving a big comedy draw in New Zealand, and Mr. Lionel Walsh says that he has received several requests for return visits from many of the provincial centres visited during the past month. * *

The New York “Musical Courier” pays a hearty tribute to John McCormack, who is shortly expected in Australia under the Tait banner. It says amongst a big lot of other nice things: His name will always be associated with music in America, as he has done more than probably anyone else for the advancement of the American song literature, as well as for the singing of songs in English. The American public is thankful to him not only for many pleasurable hours, but also for having been educated in enjoying so called high class music and in accepting to be taught to appreciate a Mozart aria with the same degree of satisfaction and enthusiasm as when listening to a popular ballad. McCormack has shown that he was a master in programme making. •i r» ~ * “Kindling,” staged at the Palace Theatre by Messrs. J. and N. Tait, and with Miss Polini in the chief part, is a play which, so far as Sydney is concerned, achieves something new, says a recent issue of the “Sun.” A panful of liver — at least we are told by Miss Polini that it is liver — is cooked coram populo, and its savor floats out over the whole theatre. No other playwright has given us human interest of this kind since the occasion when Mr. Julius Knight was taken out to be tortured during a mediaeval play, and leather was burnt behind the scenes to give an

air of reality to the proceedings. The play itself is perfectly reasonable in plot and idea, and gives opportunities for some excellent character acting, of which some of the actors avail themselves more enthusiastically than others. Miss Polini gives an excellent study of a girl of the tenements, or what we imagine —and the author imagines—such a girl to be. The comic relief —seriocomic at times, and more serio than comic at that — was capitally played by Miss Maggie Moore. There was a sweet girl part, played almost as well as it deserved, by Miss Marie Ney, and a frigid aunt, just a little too frigid, as portrayed by Miss Olive Wilton. Mr. Harry Roberts did a workmanlike job as Heinie Shules, with some really fine passages of acting. Mr. Kay Souper did not quite attain the bedside manner as a doctor. Mr. John de Lacey was nearly as good an imitation of a plainclothes constable “as ever was,” and Mr. John Fernside was a truly typical “crook,” as crooks go in American plays. With good acting, a certain literary merit, and a very human story, the play deserves the support which it will doubtless obtain.

The death of poor Gaby Deslys. after her thirteenth operation, removes one of the most-discussed stage figures of our time —a woman around whose name legend is likely to accumulate as thickly as it did about the name of Lola Montez, the favourite of an earlier generation,

comments a writer in the “Daily Mail.” Although she received enormous sums of money—her fortune is estimated at £400,000 —her instincts were almost as frugal as those of the typical French peasant woman. She frequently wore hats which cost her £3OO and £4OO, but this was not extravagance so much as good sound advertising. She knew that it was essential to her success .that she should be talked about at all costs. She was a pastmistress of all the arts of theatrical advertising. One day she was being pursued across the Continent by some frenzied admirer of ancient lineage, the next day she lost her pearls, the day after that she was seen in public carrying the latest thing in diminutive monkeys. Not so many months ago, in London, she had a law case about a portrait which she considered unsatisfactory. At the end of the case, just as she was getting into her motor car outside the court, the offending portrait was carried out. Gaby turned to a man friend, borrowed his penknife, and promptly slashed the portrait into ribbons. She was a fascinatinglittle stage figure of the Dresden doll type. Hers was just that pink and white kind of prettiness. And even her voice was doll-like. As someone once said, “You feel you want to buy her and put her on your mantelpiece.” It is the best description of her appeal to the public that I have ever heard.