FROM USHER TO 'STAR'

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2632, 30 November 1915, Page 9

FROM USHER TO 'STAR'

"ABE POTASH " INTERVIEWED

SOMB NEW POINTS OF VIEW

How a Gentile can be more like a .Tew on the stage than a Jew, is admirably illustrated in the respective characterisations of Paul Burns and Sam Le Bert in /'Potash and Perlmuttor." Tho Abe Potash of the play is in real life Paul Burns, who is an American by birth, of mixed parentage. "My father was of Scotch-Irish parentage, m>' mother of French-Dutch,. and 1 was born in Philadelphia. Now ivhat am I?", said Mr. Bums in the course of a chat yesterday. "1 have played lots of Jew parts, and was apparently so successful that I began to wonder if there _ was not really a streak of tlio Jew in me, and I've had my mother and father scratching their lioads over their anccstry io locate the missing link, but without any success to speak of."

"I commenced a stage career sixteen years ago," said Mr. Burns. "I was, first of. all, a theatre usher, then I rose to be a billsticker, then on up the dizzy heights to a 'super.' At last I got a chance to speak lines in a comedy at Keith's Theatre'.in Philadelphia. Eight weeks 'later I was the principal comedian, and did three seasons there. When I returned five years later it was as manager of the theatre, with my own company. I first appeared in a Jew part about ten years ago, in a play called 'Kidnapped,' and was said to be quite good in it. Good enough, anyhow, for Mr. Al. Woods to keep ino going In such roles for three years. Then I had my own company out playing George Cohan's comedies. Just befqro I met "Potash and Pcrlmutter" I was in vaudeville playing a sketch i>ntitled "Red Gross Mary," a war playlit. When Barney Barnard went on vacation I played Potash at Obhan's Theatre on Broadway, and it was there that Mr. Hugh J. Ward saw me in the part.. I have not followed Mr. Barnard slavishly in the part, having patterned-my Abe largoly on the tailor oil Broadway who builds my clothes. I try to make him as natural as I can. Indeed, that is the marked trend of the stage in America.to-day—to get natural types from everyday life, for managers have found that there is plenty of eritertainment in presenting human nature as it really exists, without exploiting weird creations of the perfervid imagination.

Poor Shakespeare I "There are thousands of Potashes and Perhnutters in America—everybody knows them.' That's why the play has boon such a success, and managers have not boon (>low to recognise it. Thero ai'G always a lot of highbrows around who sigh for Shakespeare, and many of them are really sincere in their love for the great plays, but life is too strenuous, time all too fleeting, for the average audience to grasp the. meaning of Shakespeare's abstruse diasingle sentence'..of which is somotimes hotly debated for an entire evening by d Shakespearean club— couched in mediaeval English, wlieri they can get the stuff they want and readily understand served up snnppily. I don't bow to anyone ill my veneration of the works of the.Master, but the naked truth must be spoken sometimes." • Actresses Never Retire. ■ On a chance remark anent the, retire-' 'inent of Miss Julia Mariow from the "stage, Mi\ Burns struck an interesting vein.- "No actress ever really retires from the 6tage. That's,the pity of it. } flse#j.'s sometji.iiig-.ymagnetic.an/tnerfoot-:lights and tho crowd and the applause which draws them back—always back. I think it is an 'awful pity that our great-'actresses do not retire at " 'the height of, their glory.' Look at Bernhardt coming, back to America with a cork leg—at her age. To some she will be always a great woman, but to the yourtger generation wh ■ have not seen her before she will hardly be the wonder actress of all times. This tour will dampen her glory and dull the lustre of her fame with the young. I think all great actresses should retire when they are at their ■ zenith, and give the oncomers a. chance, and so leave pleasant memories behind. It is the same in other spheres. There's Eoosevclt, for instance, a man-1 have a great admiration for. Now he is becoming almost disliked, particularly in Press circles, through his notoriety-seeking proclivities, trying to get in his old'punch for the Presidential chair. This has' spoilt, the 'man and reduced his sense of'dignity; yet he is still a much-loved man, and' was really a wonderful energiser." .Complimentary, "Australia —why it's a great country. I expected to seo the rabbits ■ and kangaroos dashing through the back streets of Melbourne and Sydney, but the only places I could find them in were the museum and the zoo. They are both superb cities, with solid progress written all over them, and though I was home-sick for tho first week or two—and it did rain a lot in Melbourne—the spirit of the place cured me. And New Zealand—well, what a bonnie country it is. Everything so fresh and greon, and your mutton and wool! Why. I'm thinking of buying np a wool ranch hereabouts as a side line, with 'Potash and Perlmutter' over tbo main entrance "