MIMES AND MUSIC.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 88, 15 April 1911, Page 11

MIMES AND MUSIC.

THE SHOWS, OPERA HOUSE. George Marlow's Company, in season. Allan Hamilton, Bth to 17th May. J. C. Williamson, 18th May to 7th June. George Mario w, 12th June to Ist July. Clarke and Meynell, 6th to 20th July. J. C. Williamson, 17tb to 26th August. Clarke and Meynell, 15th to 30th September. J. C. Williamson, sth to 25th October. Clarke and Meynell, 3rd to 16th November. J. C. Williamson, Christmas season. THEATRE ROYAL. Fuller's New Vaudeville Company. HIS MAJESTY'S. THEATRE. His Majesty's Pictures. THE KING'S THEATEE. ' Eoyal and West's Pictures. ST. THOMAS'S HALL. Star Picture Company. THE NEW THEATEE. MacMahon and Donnelly's Pictures. TOWN HALL. "The Wanderers" (Concert Chamber), season opens to-night. This afternoon the first performance in Wellington of " The Bad Girl of the Family" will be given at the Opera House by George Marlowe Dramatic Company.- The list of characters is a long one, and the scenic effects are many and original. The play is filled with sensational episodes, ranging from attempted burglary to abduction, and including the substitution of one prisoner for another, and also of "The Bad Girl" for the virtuous heroine at the marriage altar. There is ?-lso a wedding in a gaol yard, an ingenious escape from captivity, a pillow fight, and an affray with the police in a shop girls' dormitory, and other equally sensational and exciting situations. The story opens with a quarrel between the sisters Moore, both of whom love young Gordon, who is the son of a wealthy and unscrupulous money-lender. The love of Bess has outrun her wisdom, and her sister denounces her to her- parents, with~ the result that she is cast out. Young Gordon has no further use for her, as his father planned a great match for him with Lady Erskine, the daughter of a penniless earl who has fallen into the moneylender's clutches. Gladys Erskine, however^ has- lost .her heart tc Lieutenant Dick Marsh, and she declines to be sold like one of her father's horses: Dick also has some very natural objections to the transac- ■ tion, and the struggle goes on. • Dick is called away to rejoin his ship, and for the time the game is so much in. the hands of young Gordon. that he leads Lady Erskine to the altar. But Bess ' substitutes herself,- and so becomes the lawful wife of her deceiver, much to the chagrin of the latter. Even this does not end the machinations of the Gordons, for a chain of circumstances enables them to have Marsh arrested for the murder of Lord Erskine, and he is condemned to death. True to the last to her • love, Gladys weds him in the dark shadows of old Dartmoor, and then they part, apparently for ever. But again fortune changes, and everything ends happily. "The Bad Girl of the Family " had a long run in London, where at one time if> was being produced at two theatres simultaneously, while other companies were touring the provinces with it. This play was also the opening bill at Mr. Marlow's new theatre in Sydney, The Adelphi, which was opened last Wednesday. "The Wanderers," Mr. George Stephenson's musical comedy costume company, will make their first appearance at the Town Hall Concert Chamber this evening. This combination has been touring' Australia for many months, arid has proved a great success. As noted last week, the company is made up of ■specialists in all departments of entertaining, and they provide a very diversified programme. The bjight particular star of the company^ is Miss Phyllis , Hopwood-Foldi, a society entertainer, who comes endorsed with most laudatory English and Australian press notices. Miss Foldi is said to enjoy the distinction of being the first and only lady musical monoloquist to appear in London. Miss Foldi spent two years in London, and then went to Paris, where- she was just as successful. America followed, and Miss Foldi intends returning there at the conclusion of this tour. "The New Theatre," the home of the continuous show, will open its doors to-night. Much money and labour hat> been expended in fitting the, theatre up, and it should prove a very comfortable house of entertainment. Messrs. MacMahon and Donnelly have fixed the admission price at sixpence and threepence, a tariff low enough to suit everyone. The "continuous" show will commence on Easter Monday, and will run froo? 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. The lessees have made arrangements for the supply of the latest biograph novelties. The idea of a "continuous" theatre is new to the Dominion, but is very popular in other countries. Messrs MacMahon and Donnelly intend giving the experiment a thorough trial here. That "Why Men Love Women," ■Walter Howard's latest melodrama, is palatable to the public taste is proven by its wonderful success at Home and abroad. Mr. Allan Hamilton, who has secured the sole Australasian rights from Messrs Clarke and Meynell, is busy organising a No. 2 company, which will tour cho "smalls" of the Commonwealth, commeucing at Charteis Towers (North Queensland) and finishing at KalgoorlTe (Western Australia). The No. 1 company began its tour of the Dominion at Invercargill on 11th April, with Miss Frances Ross and Mr. Conway Wingfieid ir Ihe leading voles. The Williamson Dramatic Company will play "The Whip," "Via Wireless," and "Henry of Navarre," during the New Zealand tour, which starts at Auckland to-night. Mr. Ambrose Manning, who is with the company, has kept in touch with friends in the Dominion since he visited this quartei of the globe a good many years ago with the Wilson , Barrett Company. Mr. Manning will' play the comedy part of Tom Lambert, Lord Beverley's trainer, in "The Whip," Marsh, the inventor, in "Via Wireless," and Charles IX. in "Henry of Navarre." With Mr. Walter Baker playing the paru; of the late Max Maxwell, the company will be continued under the management of Mr. George D. Portus as the Max Maxv/ell Dramatic Company. The Melbourne season, which has been of a record character, terminates this >veek, after which the company will visit Broken Hill and the West, and then come on to New Zealand. A Sydney theatregoer, who signed her.seif as " Old Patron," wrote to Clarke and Meynell as follows: — '"I do hope that your new play won't be too giuespme. I was in Melbourne when the girl was taken out of the Yarra in a boot-box, and a woman in a case, introduced into a drama, makes it a< bit too morbid." The Clarke and Meynell management immediately notified the *,uperseneitive patron that "The Woman in the Caee" is neither in a boot- box nor a case. The case is the trial of Julian Rolfo on a charge of murdering his best friend, Philip Long, and there was a woman at tbe bottom of that case. Mr. Harry Roberts has finished a Melbourne season under the Clarke and Meynell management. "The Australian actor is iiow under engagement to Mr. Wil- { iiam Anderson for a season commencing tat the King's Theatre, Melbourne, to-

night, and for the New Zealand tour which, ie to follow. Mr. Roberts will appear as John Ashby in the new American drama Mr. Anderson is staging in Melbourne for Easter, "Right is Might." Now that "Jack and the Beanstalk" has reached the end of its fifteen weeks' run, a few statistics of its remarkable career in Melbourne may be of interest. The total number of 'performances is 125 — greater than that of any other pantomime ever staged in Australia. Her Majesty's Theatre, Melbourne, holds at a reasonable estimate 2500 people a .performance, which means that 300,000 people have paid for admission to the theatre to see "Jack and the Beanstalk" since its beginning — that iai not allowing for the full complement of audience being present at every performance. It has provided work for something like 425 people, and the weekly wage list ran well over four figures. Melbourne is to get its first experience of a "Repertory Theatre" under busi-ness-like conditions (says the Bulletin). Gregan McMahon, who ran "The Players" in their palmiest days, and gave promise of establishing a school of modern comedy acting until he threw up the job to take a touring engagement, has formed rational plans. He asks for no Government endowment or backing from private guarantors, but is practically starting a school for amateurs with a Repertory Theatre purpose. His .pupils will as soon aa possible be put into rehearsal for three plays to run for four nights each. Ibsen, Galsworthy, and St. John Hankin aye to be tried in tho first place; and the best professionals available will be asked to do what work is beyond the amateur etrength of the organisation. The business management is to run on the lines of the Glasgow Repertory Theatre. The price of tickets for each performance will be ss, 3s, and Is at the doors, but ardent supporters will be invited to take parcels of coupon tickets at reduced figures There are .said to be hilly ,4000 persons hungering for repertory plays in Melbourne. McMahon reckons that if he can get 100 of them to buy each a par--eel of ticket*, he will have all the assured support absolutely necessary for each season. He is concluding his present engagement with the "Message from Mars" Company, and will then devote all his energies to the new scheme. Tho firei, Australian performance of "The Woman, in th© Case" at the Criterion Theatre, Sydney, laet week wae remarkable for the brilliant success of Miss Mabel Trevor, who wae brought out from England to play th© part of Mre. Julian Rolfe. It was not a case of taking ths audience by etorm with tremendous dramatic power and a commanding personality (remarks a Sydney paper). Frail in figure, and relying upon fine nervous force and refinement of 6tyle, Miss Trevor won her way inch by inch. i She got in her first "thrill" during the pathetic scene which follows the incst of Julian Rolfe as a supposed murderei-. Miss Trevor gained ground m the none-too-well-constructed prison scene in the eecond act. ' The end of the third act saw her acknowledged as the best emotional artist who has 'appeared on the Sydney stage since Miss Margaret Anglin staggered the natives in "The Thief" some three years ago. Miss Elinor Fos- i ter, the other English actress, as the wicked nvoinan in Clyde "Fitch'e drama, j had to make the most of her opportunities in the "seizing" supper room scene of the third act. Miss Foster showed real dramatic power. Moreover, she presented a low woman under the influence of drink in the supper scene with a commendable amount of artistic restraint. Too much realism would have made the scene, which ' takes place in* the dim light of the table lamp, disgusting. ' The working plan of the late Clyde Fitch in "The Woman in the Case" 'is on almost the same lines as those which were followed by another American, dramatist in "The Third Degree." A charge of murder which follows the uuicide of a mail who finds a. sideway out of trouble ie the pivot upon which the plot turns in both plays. An examination of a play like "The Whip," ifi interesting, as showing what is entailed in ite construction. Everything has to be strictly timed. It is essential that the dialogue is spoken at the same rate, that the same amount of time is taken over a certain bit of stage business — all has to be carefully rehearsed and calculated. If it were not jjo the audience might easily be in the theatre till midnight. The big hunting breakfast scene only plays eight minutes, while there is not one scene of the whole 18 in the piece that endures, for 20 minutes. Some of the big money lavished on the production, gets very little display from a time point of view. The railway smash and the race for the Two Thousand Guineas, admittedly fine effects, and providing a thrill of the drama, put together, don't amount to four minutes. According to a London authority, the profits earned by "The Whip" in itsfirst season amounted to £79,000. The play has also been wonderfully successful in Australia. j xNicola, the illusionist, is preparing for a visit to the Commonwealth in a few weeks' time. He is arranging to bring the largest company of assistants who have ever appeared in the Commonwealth, and is now forwarding several tons of effects as a .first instalment of his impedimenta. His repertoire, which will be sufficient to provide material for a dozen different programmes of three hours' "duration, will consist of sleight-of-hand illusions, weird deeds in fakir magic, as well as some new and astounding cabinet tricks.. Also there will be included many feats in escapology, in which Nicola is described by the Indian press as equalling, if not surpassing, the famed Houdini. i Mr. Gaston Mervaie, the well-known actoi, has been very busy at Queenscliff with a first-class company of artists It is hinted that at least three subjects, o f dramatic and comedy interest, aro nearly ready for presentation, and will further exemplify the fact that Australia must jurely be recognised in the near future as a serious rival to the film manufacturers of foreign countries. Mr. W. S. Percy,, of "The Dollar Princess" Company*, was a passenger to Melbourne by the Ulimaroa, which sailed from Dunedin on Sunday last. This was Percy's "farewel 1 " of New Zealand, for next month he will fail for England, where he will probably join one of George Edwardes's touring musical comedy companies and afterwards appear in London if opportunity serves. It is Percy's intention to remain in England for about three years. "Then, who knows," he remarked to a Dunedin precsman ; "I may return at t'lie head of my own company." Percy will be accompanied by his wife, who war Miss Jessie Ramsay, of Dunedin, and late of Tom Pollard's Opera Company in the halcyon days of that combination. Cleopatra, the Argentina snakecharmer, is otf to London -with Bonita, to the Coronation festivities. She returns to Australia in six months to marry M. J. Band, a leading jeweller, of Kalgoorlie. Mr. Harry Whaite, the Sydney scenic artisb, has been tommissioned by cable from London to paint the scenery for tho Maori season at the Crystal Palace. Of course, the scenery will be New Zealandish, and as Mr. Whaite has been right through ' the Dominion he is we'l qualified' for the work. Since the Pcllard' Opera Company .vent abroad, Australia has rarely pos&ei,ied_ a permanent graduating school of acting, but something is being done in this direction by the J. C. Williain&ou management, who are now rehearsing a complete band of children for "The Geisha" and "Floradora."