THEATRE HOURS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 196, 14 May 1919, Page 2

THEATRE HOURS

• A PLEA TOT? TEE ONE-ACT PLAT. v (By a Correspondent of tlio London 1 ' " • "Times.") i- Mure than ono London theatre manager lias boasted of late that the theatre ! is about the only thing whioh has not i put its prices up to the public. Strictly speaking, the stntctnent may be accurate, but it requires considerable qualification. i Tlio price* of ttdmiesiou certainly remain • thu fiiimi), but the amojint of cntertaiu- - nient presented is. us ft general rule, :. considerably lees than was thocasebo- . fore the war. When it was decided that ; nil plncps of-amusement must Qlqse their - doors to the public by halfrpiist ten, the - opportunity was taken by nioro tliaa i one theatre .-.to. cut: its oiitertainniont , dow;i to the minimum, thdiigh, of course, . there were notable exceptions. But now . that iho early eloping rule has been with- , drawn, the public expect a longer pro- , (trarume, though it ie not yet forthcoming. Theatregooru, therefore, aro payi ins: the game prices that they did be-x fore the war for what is often a very J attenuated evening's performance. There f are plays running at tlie present moment 0 which do not last for more than ;i . couplo of hours, and which a manager would never have dreamt of producing in pre-war days without the addition of some other ifem to strengthen tho programme. At the present moment there are thirty-six playhouses " open in London, most', of which are doing very good business. In not a single instance is' a curtain-raiser being presented.. On the 3 day' that war was declared fifteen 3 theatres wero open to the public, and '' no fewer than fivo of them were offering sorno entertainment apart from iJio nmin ' play of tho. evening, whilo the Coliseum s had two one-act-plays in its .programme. 1 Tho entertainment was of many ent kinds—a shorfpla'y.a party of danc--1 crs, or a pierrot performance—but one- . 1 act plays Some years ago • there was certainly a prejudice against tho curtaiiwaiser, but in the months be--3 fore the war , there had been a. vast im- > provempnt. Sir James Barrie, with "Kosalind," "The Twelve Pound Look," ' and' "Hnlf-an-llour," had shown the pos- ' sibilities of this kind of entertniniueiit) ' Miss Gertrmlp Jennings,-with her bril- ■ liantly witty" sketches like "Fivo Birds in a Gwie" and "Tho Eost Cure"; Mr. 1 Frederick Fenn with " 'Op o , ' lly t Thumb"; Mr. H. M. Wnllbrook, and others, had almost succeeded in getting" ■ the public to look upon the.short play . as quite as important as Hip rest of the programme. One-act plays are still boinK written, but there is no dcniaud ' for them until the present condition of affairs changes. At the moment,- the only short play of any kind to be 6een t in London is "Half-au-Uour" at . the ' Coliseum. ' .

It is interesting to compare the enter* tainnient which is being provided by tho London theatres now with that when Lord Palmerstion was able to announce the conclusion of peace after the Crimea War at the end of March, J856. Drury Lana then, as now, was presenting grand opera in English. At the Haymarket, Mr. Buckstone was appearing in hie original part in "A Daughter to Marry,' and the programme also included a comedy, a ballet-pantomime, and a divert" ins farce, "Lend Me Five Shillings." At tho Royal Princess's three pieces wore being presented—"Every One Iliis His Fault," "The Victor Vanquished," and "A l'rinco for an Ilonr"; while the Adelphi, advertising that its programme bewn nt 1 and ended at 11, offered to ife patrons "Jack and the Bpiuistnlk," "Mother nnd Child nre Doing Well," and "Urgent Private Affairs." Shakespeare wng being played at tho Great National Standard Theatre, where "King John," with a company of'two hundred artists, was followed by opera; and at the Royal Solio Theatre, where "Othello" formed a strange companion to the "screaming farce. "Mrs. Jones." Sadler's Wells was presenting a colossal entertainment which consisted of '"The Courier of Lyons," after which 'The Invisible Prince,' to be.followed by the grand Amazonian ballet, concluding with other entertainments," The programme at tho Royal Surrey Theatre was made up of "How'We Live in tho World of London." "Tho Lawyer's Legend," and "1 ho Cobbler and Tailor"; whilo at the Royal Olympic tho performance of Still "Waters Rrin Deep" was followed by "Tho Discreet Princess.' Tho fact that dinner was served at an earlier hour partly explains the length of the programme; but now the tendene: seems to be to ro from the one cxtreni of too substantial an entertainment t* tho other of a programme which is all 100 short.