Plays and Pictures.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 3, Issue 51, 1 March 1912, Page 6

Plays and Pictures.

Whiem Ethel living's Australasian tour is completed, and she returns to England, she takes up a starring engagement at the Louden Colosseum. Her performance will comprise a sketch, and her salary will be £600 per week — the largest paid to an actress at a London music hall, with the exception of Sara Bernhardt, who-received £1000 per week. Miss Irving will then once more enter upon he.--'own management. * * * Georgo Alexander, the celebrated London actor, once told the stagestruck not to go on the stage. He put it tuns: "Don't, unless you can rough it! Don't, unless you can wait! Don% unless you can eat your heart I Don't, unless you can weep, and win I Save I you can accept as your portion disap--1 point ment, delay, w'oariness, travel and j travail, opposition, malice, neglect, the heartache, and the thousand natural shocks the stage flesh is heir to— don't! The men and women who have climbed have shirked nothing, Jailed of nothing, and done something." * * * A wit has said that every girl who caii recite "Curfew shall-not It ing Tonight" has her stage name selected. * * * Apropos of the recent strike of ballet girls in Paris, a contemporary has tite following:— When ballet girls go out on strike, And others take their placed, True sympathisers will not like The ladies' airs and graces. They'll think non-union dancers err However high their flights arc, These will be. blacklegs, we infer, Whatever hue their tights are * * * Allen Doon-o and company are m occupancy of the Wellington Opera House as we go to press. Big biz is the rule, and tho Irish comedy dramas in the company's repertory are finding much favor with the audiences. "Sweet County Kerry" and "A Romance in Ireland" arc redolent of the "ould soil," and they are thoroughly wholesome and healthy in their humor and sentiment. Allen Doone is a gay gossoon, a broth of a bboy intoirely, so he is, and Edna jjiii-oley shure is the "swatest of swatc colleens," with the quaintest, delightfulest, uncommonest Irish-Yankee brogue iver heard. Faith, tiie spache was niver spoken in Oireland as it comes from ICdna's luscious, loving and lovable lips. * * # "Waiter," called the guest at tho cafe, who had just changed his mind. "Waiter l" "lessir," replied the waiter, rushing back to the table. " .Make that chop a st ak, will you? " "Sir," answered the man with the napkin, "I am a waiter, not a magician." » * * A new phase of the big hat trouble has occurred in a theatre in Vienna. A lady in the stalls', having been asked to remove her w idi spreading headgear, complied with tiie ieqtiest, and placed the olfending article on her lap. Unfortunately, the mighty structure obstructed her own \ iew of the stage, and she therefore demanded the return of the price she had paid for her scat! Honest Injin! * * # Blanche Browne has achieved an unqualified success iv the title role of ■The Quaker Girl" at Her Majesty's, Sydney. After playing Mary Gibbs for hi months, the opportunity to be someone eke must have como as a great relief, notwithstanding the fact that .Miss Browne states that she could have gone on playing it fore\er. Tho part of tho Quaker Girl, however, she finds every bit as attractive, and hopes that she may not be called upon to change her stage, identity for another year at least. * * * The characters in the modern morality play, "Everywoman," rango over all the pitfalls of while Everywoman's Counsellor is Nobody. In her pilgrimage tho companions of Evcrywoman aro Youth, Beauty, Modesty, and Conscience is her handmaiden, while she meets Flattery, Truth (whom she sees as an ugly witch), Passion, Time (who takes from her in turn her companions), Wealth, Witless, Greed, Vanity, Vice, Grovel, and Sneak, among others. In tho theatre she encounters Bluli and Stuff, tho managers, Puff, the press agent, and in the chorus are Flirt, Smiles, Dimples, Curls, Curves, Shape, Shy, and Giggles. The epilogue of tho play runs thus :— The play is ended. This the cue For Nobody to bid adieu, But first he'll seek you in tho authors name; Bo merciful, be just, bo fair, To every woman everywhere, Her faults arc many. Nobody's the blame. * * * "Quite the most gifted of the London actresses who have so far visited New Zealand," is how the "New Zealand Herald" describes Miss Ethel Irving, and in W. Somerset Maugham's comedy drama, "Lady Frederick," our contemporary remarks that she has "a work full worthy of her gifts." Conjointly they are certain to prove an. irresistible attraction to all classes of Dominion drama devotees. * « # Mr. J. C. Williamson- has sent Miss Ethel Irving to New Zealand with a supporting company of whom at least three of the other principals —particularly Mr. Stephen T. Ewart—are exceptionally fine artists. As Mr. Paradine Fowldes in "Lady Frederick," Mr. Kwarb is scon in- ono of tho most admirable characterisations it has been the fortune of New Zealand play-pat-rons to witness from an actor not billed (as this ono micrht well be) as a "ataf."