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New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1579, 29 July 1920, Page 35

Miss Ethel Morrison, who has been resting in Wellington, is leaving for Australia to rejoin the J. C. Williamson firm. She will be a member of the new Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company.

Mr. Gerald Griffin, with whom Mr. Victor Beck has been negotiating for several years, is leaving America shortly on an Australasian tour. He is bringing some 30 or 40 new plays of the Irish comedy order, and while arranging for these to be produced, will probably be heard in concert work. A cutting from the latest American paper gives an idea of Mr. Griffin’s ability as a singer: His first song is a tender Irish melody, which he begins singing in the wings before the audience gets sight of him, and the audience instantly becomes interested because of a rare smoothness of tone and richness of melody rarely heard outside grand opera. Dressed in an open-necked waist, black silk small clothes and low shoes with huge buckles, he presents a picture of an Irish swain of the better class of 100 years ago. His first number in sight of the audience is an operatic medley of old Irish airs and folk songs containing snatches from “My Wild Irish Rose,” “Where the River Shannon Flows,” “Kathleen Mauvourneen,” and “Killarney.” His voice is soft and expressive, and under good control, even in the highest tones, which he reaches easily.

The J. C. Williamson pantomime, “The Sleeping Beauty” has broken every record so far in New Zealand, from grand opera downwards. It is a real money spinner. Auckland will be played next month.

According to the arrangement between J. C. Williamson, Ltd., and the Taits (says a “Bulletin” correspondent), George Tallis and F. S. Tait will, it is understood, control the young octopus in Melbourne, while E. J. Tait, with a Williamson official as chief lieutenant, will direct the tentacles in Sydney. Clyde Meynell may or may not (probably will not) remain on the directorate, but Hugh Ward moves off his throne in Sydney, and will probably go back to America. Many actors will be sorry to lose Mr. Ward, who, despite his aggressiveness, certainly knew his business. As for the Taits, they will be saved the expense of two theatres, which they were on the point of building in Sydney and Melbourne. The compensating advantage to J.C.W., Ltd., will be the use of the Tait brains in management. In the past, both crowds have been depressed by the spectacle of their

respective emissaries bidding against one another for some American or English “hit” that both were convinced would prove an Australian success. The unnecessary cash spent in this way has produced a partial gloom in the balance sheets, and it is largely to remove this annoyance that the two firms have decided to run together in certain specified directions, though still retaining their separate identities.

A frail woman of 83 enraptured a large audience at the “Old Vic.” Theatre in Waterloo Road, London, by the genius of her acting. Hardened theatregoers, moved to tears by her magnetic force, rose from their seats in a body at the end of the performance, and the little woman, with her triumphs behind her. was recalled again and again before the curtain. The little elderly woman was Miss Genevieve Ward, who opened the Shakespeare birthday festival by appearing as Volumnia in “Coriolanus.” Miss Genevieve Ward is frail and exacting, but within the worn-out body there still burns the flame of genius. Of all the actors in the play hers was the most beautiful voice, says the “Daily Mail” critic. IjJot a word was slurred, not a line was missed. On the stage she was not a woman of 83. She was a patrician lady of old Rome; she was a gifted actress of the old school, teaching the moderns how to interpret Shakespeare. Seated in the wings Miss Ward closely watched the scenes in the play, and when an actor misquoted his lines she tapped her foot impatiently and remarked: “Bad, very bad. You must not take liberties with Shakespeare.” Herself she never missed a line or marred a word. Her voice, like a golden bell, rang clear and true, and the large audience, forgetting they were seeing an aged woman, cried and then rapturously applauded.

William Hassan is considered the best animal impersonator in the world. He has amused children of the British Empire for 20 years in various skins and furs, but. perhaps the cleverest performance of all is his touching impersonation of Mother Hubbard’s dog in the J. and N. Tait pantomime of that name.

Realising that pantomimes nowadays are mostly glorified revues, and not so much a children’s entertain ment as a pantomime should be, J. and N. Tait and Bailey and Grant have tried to make “Mother Hubbard” conform to the standard' set in the pantomimes of the old days, when children were considered 'first and foremost. If any one should know how to suit the children’s tastes it is Barry Lupino. as since the time ho was five he was connected with pantomimes at the old Britannia Theatre in Hoxton, England, which theatre was owned by his grandmother, and the productions there staged by his father. He is one of the most youthful comedians on the stage to-day, being in his early thirties, but that, does not alter the fact that he has been on the stage for nearly thirty years.