THE DRAMA.

Press, Volume XLIX, Issue 14842, 6 December 1913, Page 2

THE DRAMA.

(Br "Ctkako.") At latest advices Mr Winter Hall was playing an important part in the successful season of "Within the Law" in Sydney. The "Herald" says of him that "hie excellent presence and capital sense of authority enable him to present snch characters with force and judgment." What promises to be a very interesting entertainment will be given at the School of Art on Saturday evening next by the students, when six scenes founded on Kingsloy'e version of the story of Perseus will bo presented. The scenes will be given without words, save that at intervals the story will bo told to the audience, apparently by some one not in. the cast. I am told that a great deal of work is being put into the ecenery, lighting, and costumes, the teaching staff directing the operations, assisted by students. An Art Students' Association is now in existence, and I hear it is a very live body. This is not the first wordless play produced at the School of Art, and apparently the students have high ampitions in this direction.

It can be said of tlie late Mr Charles Brookiield, tbo actor and dramatist whose appointment, as Censor of Plays was the worst insult ever offered to the British drama, that ho was a very capable actor and a man of unusual \vit, and that ho endured his last long illness with a cheerfulness that woiild have delighted Robert Louis Stevenson. Several good itories are told of him. One related to a young actor who once came into the Green Room Club, and let everyone know that he had just been dining with some titled people. "' Yes, , he continued, 'but do you know it was a most extraordinary thing—there was no fish!' "Why, had they eaten ft all upstairs?" asked Brookfield. Some years ago his death was reported in the papers, and one journal said of him: "He was an excellent actor of email parts, but lie will bo missed most at his clubs." BrookfieM was fond of telling this againet himself, and he probably knew in his heart that it was a pretty fair estimate. There was probably more originality in the notice of his death than in any of his many plays. The usual announcement was followed by, "Will those who kindly wish to send flowers send the money to a charitable fund instead?"

The "Standard," at the end of October, bad tfeei following about the autumn season in the London theatree: — Since the re-opening of the theatrical season in the last days of August there has been great mortality among new plays. It used to be a favourite complaint from the people who call themselves "serious students of the drama" that the system of long runs is bad both for acting and the work of the dramatist. But for twelve months past there has been little to complain of in the way of long runs, and if the isenoua students are right, English drama ought just now: to be on a very high plane. Unhappily, it is to be feared that the many short runs which have descended like a blight on the West-end theatres are due almost entirely to the fact that the plays have been bad. The last eeason ended with a positive massacre of new plays, and in the present season the carnage is almost as dreadful. Since the beginning; of September we have seen the birth and death of "The Picture of Dorian Gray" at the Vaudeville Theatre, ''Girls" at the Prince of "Wales's, and "Years of Discretion' , at the Globe Theatre. "Collision" has disappeared from, ths boards of the Vaudeville, Theatre after ,a. run of only three weeks. It was "" a c'ostlv and: ambitious production, but though, there was considerable cleverness and promise in the play it was a very bad specimen of dramatic entertainment, and the public has not "walked up." "The pubhV is a very difficult nut for the managers to crack, but the experienced producers of "Collision", ought to have known that the chances of success were very much against it. 'xaen, at the Comedy Theatre. "The New Duke" is soon to make way for another production on November 3rd, and this after a run of only three weeks up to date. "The New Duke" was a very moderate kind of farce, and even the i? f^r of pla ying farc6 which is possessed by Mr Weedon Grossmith could not lift it into success— The play was certainly at fault here. <

But (continues the "Standard") what shall be said of the other production which is doomed, Mr Shaw's '<Androcles and the Lion," which, with '"Harlequinade," disappears from the St. James's after Saturday next ? Hero is an entertainment provided by Mr Shaw and his chief disciple Mr Granvillo Barker, and, therefore, stuffed with cleverness. A Shaw play at a first-class West-end theatre ought to run for more than eight weeks. Perhaps it is that in this case the entertainment was too great a tax on toe intelligence of the ordinary playgoer. He wants a happy mean between plays that are not too much below his intelligence and plays that are not too much above it. This was shown in the case of Sir James Barries "Tho Adore? One," which was a satire so subtle on one of the problems of the day, the militant suffragettes, that few people penetrated its meaning. The box office reflected this obscurity at once, and for the first time in his career Sir James had to beat a hasty retreat before public opinion and re-write his playm euch fashion that, although it was no longer a satire, people could at least see what lie meant. It is a melancholy incident. Mr Galsworthy's "The Fugitive" luis also been taken off, but that is because tho Prince of Wales's Theatre is wanted for something else. "I Love You," at i the Ambassadors Theatre, is another play which has disappeared after a few weeks' run. And there are a few others that have arrived almost at the end of their tether, however strenuously their respective producers might at the present moment deny it.

The hostile reception given to "The Playboy of the Western World," following on similar disturbances in New York and Dublin, make one wonder how Irish people in tho colonies would take this and Syngo's other plays. I find it hard to imagine any noting. There might be strong disapproval, expressed principally in the correspondence columns of the Press, but I do not see infuriated men from Mayo and Galway, and eons of men from Mayo and Galway, throwing shillelaghs (or the colonial equivalent) at the stage. Wβ aT© too far from Ireland to be so excited. Apart altogether from tiie pleasure of seeing these plays, it would be interesting to watch their effect on an audience that imacined it was coins; tosrea second Allen Doone. How mystified many of them -would be at Svnge's real people, and the absence of the meretricious lettei of those Irish plays out of which Mr Doone c'oes so wpII ! I can imagine a voice from the gallcrv an hour of "The P'avbny"—''"Wren's he going to cive us a song?" Some of tho audience.'b<*vri!derf>d br the absence of "bedads" and "bojrorra«" might think the play tras laid in. a foreijrn country. But all +Hs T fear is in the vprv distant futnre. I suppose tlierp is nbont- as much cbanee of s**insr tlip Tn?h riTayers as there is of our hearing Caruso.*

The question of the use of real names in nlays which has been brought up by the Whichello-Whichelow incident, arising oufe of Mr Henry Arthur Jones's comedy "Mary Goes First," has caused no panic among those who control the West End theair,ea. nor

even uneasiness (cays the "Standard"). As a matter of fact, this sort of thing is by no means unfamiliar to dramatic author* and managers, although it is not often that euch » fierce Tight of publicity beats down upon an incident of a similarity in names as has done In the case of Mr Jones's play- It is possible that the net result will be a very food advertisement for "Mary Goes 'irst." There. are few authors who nave had more general stage experience than Mr George R. Sims, and when the Jones - Whichello - Whichelow incident ■was mentioned to him he recalled at once a number of similar incidents. "Nearly every dramatic author," he eaid, "has met this trouble in some Jorm or other. I had it rery early in Sny career as a dramatic author. In one of my first piecai there was a character named Jellicoe—played by the late W. S. Fenley-r-who was what might be described as a bit of a bounder. Immediately after the play came ont I received a very indignant letter from a Mr Jellicoe with the same Christian name who, as I found out, was a very honourable gentleman ot considerable position in the world. Of course, in spite of that, I had never before heard of him, but he took a great deal of smoothing down before the" incident was declared closed. Since that time I have had a number of cases of the kind. It amounts to this, that you have to be very careful how you name your villains and objectionable characters. Nobody minds bearing the same name as a character on the stage whose actions are marked by nobility or other virtues, and I have never heard of ft complaint on this ecore. But beware how you name your humbugs. Mr James X. is in the audience. He sees behind the footlights a character named James X., who poisons his mother or refuses to pay hie launrdry bills, and immediately writes furiously to the management, saying that he never poisoned hie mother, and always paid his laundry bills, and that anyone who cays anything to the contrary is, etc., etc."