THE THEATRE.

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2422, 30 March 1915, Page 9

THE THEATRE.

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tho World's a, theatre; tha Eartb a stage.-—Heywood.

"Du Barry." There are two versions of : "Du Barry," the historical costume play in which Miss Nellie Stewart will make her reappearance in Wellington at the Grand Opera House on Easter Saturday evening. Both are translated from the French; one version being by an English dramatist, • and the other by David Belasco, the New York author and entrepreneur. Mr. Musgrove's .production is the American on#, which was specially -written for Mrs. Lesley. Carter, and in which she made a big success. The play ran for many months in New York, and afterwards proved a strong attraction touring. The story deals with, the life of Jeanetefc Vau-. bernier, a pretty little milliner who' becomes La. Comtesse du Barry, tho favourite of Louis XV, and virtual ruler of. France, until the jealousy of her rivals pulls her down from her pedestal and sho disappears for ever during the stormy days of the French Revolution. ■The period in' which the action takes place gives ample scope to tli» dramatist for elaborate stage settings and sumptuous costuming. In this respect, the management claims that "Du Barry" is one of the ..finest productions yet brought to the Dominion. Several old favourites are included in a lengthy cast, but more interest will centre around two newcomers—Misses Clarence Blakiston and Allan Wilkie, two English actors who will make their first appearance in Wellington.

Joseph Blascheck Again;' : ' Many will be. pleased-to learn .that. Mr.' Joseph , Blasoheok, th? artistio. raconteur and reciter,, is to- make another tour of New Zealand, commencing in. Auckland at Easter-time. Mr. Biascheck was last in New Zealand with Miss 'Ellen Terry,' when his powers to entertain were enthusiastically recognised. With' Mr. Blascheck is Miss Alyce Austin, a native of Ballarat, who 13 said to< be the possessor of a cultured soprano voice. In addition to her solos she joins with Mr.'Blascheck la humorous duets and sketches.

George Cohan. "He is the best dancer and the best dramatist in America." wrote Mr. Chaniiing Pollock of George Cohan at the conclusion of a notice of Cohan's latest comedy, '-Hello, Broadway!" The marvel about Cohan, an ex-song and dance artist, is that he can, after rising to such heights as a playwright in "Get-ltich-Quick Wallingford" and "The Seven Keys to Baldpate," get right 'back to the-most frivolous burlesque) and outdo every, other -writer in tnat line. He is the type of man that .will' in one/day write a. grand opera and negro farce, and appear in both with success. Ha simply'crystallises the vim and' quick-tire American of brains, and, brains of which we read so often and so seldom r see. Cohan's brother-in-law, Fred Niblo, is another reflection of the same type. He is going- back to America in June. ;

"By the Erie Canal." How. a song can be forced into popularity' George Cohan shows in actual practice in his burlesque jumble "Hello, Broadway," incidently a play that ivould lose grip gradually as the distance from Broadway increased.' Writing of this feature-m the;new. production, the "Green Book" says: • ■ "lien there is a perfectly gorgeous uatirisation of the elaborately 6taged "production number" of modern musical comedy..^'From-the flies descends a banner, on which, beneath the invitation, "Now,- Altogether, Boys," is painted a travesty on the sentimentality of the popular ballad;.'

Down by the Erie, There waits-my. pal j , Though the days are long and dreary, He declares he'll ne'er grow' weary. Poor John. O'Leary, I'm afraid you've lost your gal, For I've left you flat, my dearie, . By the Erie Canal.

Louise Dresser eings this refrain; a boy in the gallery sings it—then a man in an upper box, then the musicians in the orciiostra pit, and then bells distributed' through the auditorium play it. Next the chorus oomes on, blue cloth streamers transform the stage into a raging deep, upon which float gondolas full of -6inging .girls and across which rushes a 'canvas railway' train,' Mr. Cohan, Hazel Dawn-lilie. saws the melody from' a violin, and, finally, the chorus' returns to repeat the. number, with various conventional maneuvers and an accompaniment of banging tambourines. Thanks to this burlesque of. the method by which such songs are .made "beet sellers," the music publish-ers-will reap a harvest from "By the Erie Canal."

Do You Read Plays? - Henry Arthur Jones, the English playwright who has more than ninety plays to his credit, among them Margaret lllington's new "The Lie," insists that if the public will read tho modern- dramas more generally, many of the evils of the present-day theatre will be eradicated. "A widely spread interest in'the printed drama is 'at once the means and the sign, the cause and the effect, of a general betterment of the theatre. The'absence of such- an interest in the printed drama is the mark of a degraded public taste,' and of a national drama that does, not pretend aud does not care to be .anything essentially different from, at the best a child's toy, at the worst the anteroom to an 6vil.woman's boudoir.'' he says in an article in lihe'-'New York "World." "How many of the most popular plays of America and England are there that will stand the test,of reading without proclaiming themselves to be frank buncombe, trickly sentiment, slipshod slang, grinning idiocy, l , or veiled pornography?!'

A New Cenee. ■ Marilynn Miller, a child, toe dancer, who imitates Genee almost to perfection, has made a hit in the "Passing Show of 1914," in New York. Miss Miller springs . from theatrical..stock. . Her father ran' away from .home'as a boy to accept an engagement to play Sir Joseph \Porter in a juvenile production of "H.M.S. Pinafore," and he had been in the show business ever since, Little Miss Miller never uses the. hard or padded toe when dancing, but just wears the ordinary soft dancing shoe, which, is a little better than Gonee is able to,, do, - "Modemoiselle Sugarlump" as Miss Miller is billed, was only 16 years, old on September 1..

Bad Season In America. The dramatic season in New Yotlc, in fact, in the United States, now drawing to a close, has been a disastrous one for several of the leading managements, and yet thero has never been a season in which so many new plays havo been presented. Through ■ tile failure of "Tho Garden of Paradise," a fairy story.by Mr. Sheldon (author of "Salvation Nell" and "The Nigger"), which cost a mint of money to produce, the Leibler Company lias failed, and Mr. Harrison Grey Fiske, another big New York manager, 'has go'ue bankrupt through the failure of "Just Herself." The most startling, development, however, in managerial circles.in America is the amalgamation of those keen rivals Klaw and Erlanger and the Schuberts, who have fought, each other, bitterly for years past. 'Another evidence of a bad theatre season—which

will be known as the season of the great war —is that a cut-rate theatre ticket depot is selling two dollar tickets for a dollar for nearly every playhouse in the city. The theatre managers declaim any knowledge of the cut-rate 3tore, but connivance is established by tUe fact that the tickets are accepted as the Teal thing at the doors.