INTERESTING TRAVEL

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 140, 10 December 1929, Page 13

INTERESTING TRAVEL

MRS. JOHN HANNAH ABROAD

Tired after an uneven passage across the Tasman, but very well satisfied with her eleven months of travel, Mrs. John. Hannah returned to Wellington to-day by the Ulimaroa. Miss Welch, who has been her companion on the trip, returned with her.

"I liked the New York theatre/ said Mrs. Hannah, whose interest in that art is well known. "It is much more alive than the British theatre, and the acting is superb. The Theatre Guild in New York is wonderful, and they are trying to establish one in London. It is run by public subscription, but the actors are, of course, professionals. Naziinova, the film star, and Eva lo Gallienne, the English actress and daughter of the poet, both take a leading part in it." In England, Mrs. Hannah, who is a member of the Drama League, joined its summer school at Hastings under Edith Craig. Lectures were given by Harcourt Williams and Mordaunt fenarpe, and the school did various plays and also studied stage production. As a member of tho local League of i Nations Union Mrs. Hannah was particularly interested in a visit she paid to Geneva to see the Assembly. Through the good offices of Sir James Parr, she was given a ticket which admitted her to seats just behind the delegates. There she encountered Miss Phoebe Myers (of Wellington), who had just been incorporated into one of tho subcommittees dealing with matters affecting women and children. The competition for admission to the Assembly was very great, said Mrs. Hannah. Americans went in hundreds, and Indian students and a lot of North European people—Danish and Swedish folk. Although sho did not hear Mr. Kamsay Mac Donald speak, she had heard Mr. Henderson, M. Briand, the late Dr. Strescmann, and others, and also the morning lectures of Dr. Zimmern. • A visit to tho International Labour Bureau was another noteworthy event in this wonderfully interesting time at Geneva. Every nation belonging to the League had made a gift to the buleau, such as a fountain or some priceless work of art.

Mrs. Hannah also went to Ireland for "Civic Week," held every two years, and a special effort to bring forth Irish industries and arts. At this time there was staged the "Pageant of Dublin," and Sir Thomas Beeeham came over specially to conduct the orchestra. It was the first time he had been in Ireland, and he did not take a penny for his services. Mrs. Hannah described Sir Thomas as using neither music nor baton, but "simply moving from head to foot" as he conducted. Some time was spent by tho travellers on the Norfolk Broads, yachting on a 20-footer. "We went out from Oulton Broads," said Mrs. Hannah, "and the man there told us we were the first women to take a yacht out alono from that station. I had not done a great deal of yachting before, but Miss Welch had, so she was captain and I was chief mate."

Italy, Switzerland, and the battlefields followed, and then just before she sailed Mrs. Hannah saw "The Silver Tassic," tho war play by Scan O'Casey, which caused such a tremendous sensation in London. Among tho actors were Harry Laughton and Barry Fitzgerald, and Augustus John had prepared the ruined church scene in the second act, a scene which Mrs. Hannah described as the "most moving and terrible thing she had ever seen." Mrs. Hannah gave several lectures on New Zealand in Chicago and Baltimore, where the people were very interested in this Dominion; but in New York she found that, from a lecturing point of view, the attitude was frankly "nothing doing, unless," she added, "one has a European name."