THE THEATRE.

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2770, 13 May 1916, Page 11

THE THEATRE.

The. World's a theafjo; the Earth a stase.—Heywood. IBi Sylvius.] The Stars in "Under Fire." I havp never been to Europe, but if tho stars are as big and bnghc as depicted in the iast act of "Under Fire" it must bo a dazzang place for an evening stroll. .The idea o-i illuming tne heavens witn. real lights for stars (as well as having Knights as stars) is quite a good one, but m vne play tue elfect would have been heightened were they made a. little less obvious. They were much too big and "flary." Otherwise ■ the scene was most faithfully depicted, indeed, the scenery is a discinot feature in "under Fire." Une could not, too, but admire the adroit manner in which, Sir. Alegrue has used tlie main incidents of the opening of the war. on the Western front as the (skeleton of his play, It gives the melodrama a ring of conviction that war plays, as a rule, lack. Actor's Appreciation. At the last general election in Sydney of the Actors' Association Mr. Walter Bentley was elected by/the members as their president, but great difficulty having been found as to the appointment of a secretary, Mr. Bentley suggested to tho members that Mr. Julius Knight should be approached with the request that ho accept the presidential cnair, while Mr. Bentley offered to resign in ordor to resume.the position of secretary. Mr. Bentley fully appreciated the high honour conferred upon him, and while very reluctant to give it up, has sacri-. ficed himself for the good of the association generally. The following is a copy of the resolution; which was passed unanimously by the council, on Mr. Bentley's withdrawal in/ favour of Mr. Julius Knight, who is now elected president. 'Extract from minutes of the council meeting of the Actors' Association, held at their room, Eecord Chambers, 77 Castlereagh Street, on -Monday, April 10, "Mr. Greig ! moved, and .Mr., Stirling seconded: That this; council records its intense appreciation of the self-sacrifice shown by Sir. Walter Bentley, in resigning the honourable position of president, to which he was elected by an enormous majority of tho members, having for. hia object, the prosperity of this association, m resuming the position of general secretary, an pffioe he lias' held jvith the confidence and esteem, of the members for the past three years. The. motion was carried unanimously; and (Mr. Bentley lodgement" su '' a^e r l emar k. 9 in acknow"Mother Goose" Next Month. ' r , T^ e „Williamson pantomime, "Mother uoose. which has . been running in 'Melbourne and Sydney since Christmas time, and which; has been voted a v§ry gorgeous show, is, Mr. Bert Royle informs me, w ?P M ? enc e -tour of' New Zealand in Wellington instead of- Auckland this year, contrary to precedent. - The opening date will either, be Juno 20 or 27. Enthusiasm Rewarded. :. The knighting of i l , K. Benson on the occasion ot the "tercentenary of Shakespear is a case-of..enthusiasm rewarded, lor unquestionably the English stage .has held no Iner enthusiast for. the'; works of the Master Dramatist than ..-this, same good knight for a quarter of a century past, excepting nobody. 'Sir.F. R.'Benson can hardly be stamped as one of tho °! s °t" age, , for his histrionic abilities, intellectual as, they are, have pot placed hini in the forefront, yet he has probably exerted a, potent influence in England iu keeping aiiglit the-siwred name of the classic drama, when" it inigut otherwise have. 6uft'ered periods of iieglect—-aye, even. in. Shakespeare's England. Benson, if I remember.right, was a member of a touring company of which Mr. waiter Bentley, of Sydney,.was the head, louring in Scotland, when the company, lit upon bad times, and Mr. Bentley relinquished the management for a time. Mr. Benson decided to dh what he could to carry on, and under, his management - ? of the company improved considerably. I have read that this iras hi 6 first .experience in management.* . If so it was a happy accident, as it practically meant the founding' of a, prolessional travelling school .of Shakespearian drama, .which became -;known from one end of the kingdom to..tße other, not only for conscientious work upon tho stage, but as sportsmen and ■ gentlemen on and off the / stage. Benson Shared This, big enthusiasm with one-for cricket, and often it has been said -that with two men offering for a position in his company the one with a good off-break .would easily get the job against, the non-cricketing mummer. The company, played everyone wherever it went, and in this manner the company built up .a fine social connection throughout the length andbreadth of England. 'It was a, great school for experience.. -Many a striving actor has given up a decent.salary to go a-busking for., less with Benson. for the training it gave him in the. .classio drama. For Benson was not greedy for fame, and had a trick of pushing. young fellows into all sorts of '-responsible' parts ; at short notice. That is to say,'lie would advi66 a member of his company, not only to learn one part, but every male part in the play, and by playing them like chessmen he' would discover in which direction tho'actor's forte lay, whilst at thoSsame time giving considerable embarrassment to those under him. \ Still he has turned out some fine actors. Indeed, there are few prominent lyoung actors, in England who cannot claim'to' be Beneonians. Amongst those the writer can remember as members of the Benson Company, are Henry Ainley, Cyril. Keightloy, Oscar Asche, Lily Brayton, Janet Acourch, Robert Noble, Lillian -Braithwaite, L. S. ; Irving, C. M. Hallard, Haidco Gunri, Matheson Lang, Eille Norwood, ' A. E, George, and many. others too' numerous to partioularise. The Benson Company was mostly a provincial touring conoern, but occasionally he would J>lay a London season of a few weeks'. .'"He was a figure at tho Stratford-on-Avon, festivals',.-aiid only a couple of years ago was. commissioned to travel to San Francisco to arrajige a big Shakespearean carnival there. Julius ( Knight on Picture, Acting. ' Among the prominent actors whom the art of performing before the camera has interested is Mr. Julius Knight, and it is not beyond the realm of possibility that we may yet see that popular player in the series of plays with which his name has been associated, in these parts, notably, of course, "A Royal Divorce," "Monsieur Beauicatie," and even "The Sign of tho Cross" and "The Prisoner of Zenda." The Williamson firm have . entered into the picture business in grim earnest, in Australia, and it is not -improbable that they will enter into the busniess.'of producing picture-plays in a commercial way before very long. Mr. Mohte Luke, one of their employees, who is a skilled photographer, has been sent to the. "United States' to look round, and with.his aid and that of an experienced producer there is nothing to prevent Williamsons, Ltd;, with their resources'in plays, players, ..wardrobe, etc., from turning out j ust as good work as arrives _by every mailboat from America. Mr. Knight is very interested in the business, and lias very sound ideas as to tho manner in which many of the plays his name has been associated with could be made effective in picture form. Studying some of the Australian pictures, beside those perfect productions of Mr. William Fox, Mr. Knight, has como to the conclusion that the tempo of the picture is all important. It is an axiom in pictuie acting that the action must not be too fast, hot so fast, for example, as one would play the same part' on the ordinary stage, but in some of the local productions tile actors have taken this so much, to heart that the movements have been reproduced altogether too clowly, and the plethora uf pantomime exerted by the players in attempting to make the meaning plain has been, as_a rule, exaggerated. This has led Mr. Knight to the conclusion that the meaning of a situation should be conveyed more by the working of the mind through the medium of facial expression than by primitive pantomime, which method is most certainly that practised by the most skilful performers now before tho picture public. ■ I Whatever Mr. Knight's views arc, and ] one concedes from his past work that they must be founded on a sound artistic basis, it will be very interesting to see how an actor that we have all admired shapes in the new sphere of stage work. Wooping on the Stage. I was quite aware that many actresses "feel" tho emotional demands of scenes

they may be. engaged in, .and knew that certain of them oould actually conjure up tears, though'they might have played the soeno a hundred times before, but I was not aware that tears were so common. to tho emotional actress as they aroi until I was told so by Mr. Julius Kniglit. "Oh, bless you, yes!" said the actor, "they nearly all cry—some of 'em every night.. Why there were big tears in Miss Parkes's eyes <5n Tuesday night—sho unmistakably felt flie situation. But then when there is a' big emotional appeal 1 have seen the tears streamiug down their cheeks. Miss Beatrice Day used to really cry—sometimes until it choked her utterance; ami Miss Ferrar—she cried. . idiss Nance O'Neil is a wonderful weeper. See her in tho Fox Films—the most beautiful pictures we have seen.

"Why, there is a'little child actress in Australia, <who, by the way, has made a big hit in "On.Trial"— the hit of tho piece—who is 6imply wonderful in emotional parts. She played Cissy Denver in 'The Silver King' with ine, and was simply beautiful to.act with. She could cry when you told her to—at will. 'Now cry,' I used to say, and the great tears would well out of. her eyes in a most astonishing way. Why, at the first rehearsals of 'Ou Trial' she had all tha members of the company broken up with her emotional power. The child is Dorothy Seccombe, of Melbourne."

The writer can recall the Amazonian grief of Miss Nance O'Neil, particularly in Melbourne .whilst playing ..Ibsen's "Lady lager of Ostrot," in the scene where Lady Inger discovers that the political machinations she has practised "had brought about the deatE o.f the son she loved more than anything else on 'earth. Long after., the curtain fell Miss O'Neil used to sob in the grip of her volcanic grief. Another wonderful weeper, of the stage, whom older playgoers .will remember, was Signora Majeroni. Recently I had the pleasure of seeing, the picture, "Damon and Pythias," one of the most .beautifully staged and acted of the classic stories enacted before the camera....At one stage the wife: of. Damon. is shown life-size just as he goes to redeem his pledge (to give up his life for his- friend), and the tears are simply rushing, from -her eyes.' . "She's been using onions!" said someone in the gloom behind me, but I did not think so—she simply, "felt" the scene. A Successful Dramatist, The 100 th performance of Mr. H. A. Vacliell's comedy, "Who is He?" (which is still being played at the Haymarket Theatre,' London, took place on tho evening of Thursday, February 24. All the original cast, headed by Mr. Henry Ainley, are still appearing, but in tho 100 th performance the part of Irene Harding Bill be played for the first time by Miss Doris Lytton, Miss Irene Browne being duo'to take up an engagement with Mr. Robert Courtheidge. Henry Vachell also " wrote "The Chief," "Quinney's," and other successful plays. ' '

Mr. James Bell, whose death occurred in Melbourne recently, was,an old-time theatrical identity," and was welL known in Dunedin. He caine to Australia under engagement to Mr. Harry Rickards, in the late eighties, but' returned to England, then t-oured South Africa and the East,. and again joined the IJickards 'circuit. Having' remained under Mr. Rickards's management for a number of years, lie" started out on his own in the Victorian provinces. When he disbanded his company he Avasappointed Stage manager by Mr. Rick-., ard-S in Melbourne, and subsequently acted in that capacity "at the Sydney • Tivoli and in Adelaide under. Mr. Hugh M'lntosli's direction. Mr. Bell was 69 years old.', . Mr. . Bell was well known in. New Zealand, having toured this couiitry on s&veral occasions nith his "own company.

,vßy tho last mail I received a, postcard, bearing the San. Diego Exposition postmark, signed by Mr, Allen.-Dodne, Miss Edna Keeley, and' Mr: , Walter Doyle (of Honolulu). After a season in Honolulu, Mr. Doone and Miss Keeley went a-pleasuring in Southern California to see how near they could get' to. Villa and Co. without being shot up.

Mr. Geo. Willoughby, tho ei-actor-nian- ■ ager, is npw drying his hand' as a director of productions in Sydney. He has just turned out a war thriller entitled "Joan of Arc of Laos." Mr. Charles Knight is managing for Mr.s Willoughby.