Plays and Pictures.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 3, Issue 79, 13 September 1912, Page 6

Plays and Pictures.

TINY TOWN.

A BERNARD SHAW COMEDY

THE IRISH PLAYERS

It is said that before very long Julius Knight, will again be seen out in Australia and New Zealand in new roles. * * * Various opinions have been expressed in Sydney as to the correctness or otherwise of the setting of the AsoheBrayton production of "The Merry Wives of Windsor" being represented as winter, but, notwithstanding, the forest scene will rank as one of the most beautiful pictures ecen'in Australia for many a day. tr » • Hugh T>. Mcintosh, the well-known boxing promoter, has ,seci-(red a 30 years' lease of the whole of the Rick--aids vaudeville business in Australia. The purchase money runs into six figures. * * * Gaby Deslys, <*-s->King Manuel's "friend." is suing the Paris paper, "Gil Bias," for £2000 damages for attack ing her as "a symhol of the manifestations of incoherence, indecency, and low vulgarity to which music halls are addicted." * v * Tiny Town, the big show of little people, is the chief attraction of Wellington at present, and since the village burst into being at the Town Hall throngs of interested grown-ups and de-/ lighted juveniles have looked upon and listened to the midget marvels with and fascination. Tiny Town is altogether a. quaint and novel show, which everyone fckould and most everybody will seo. In a paragraph comin*->i.ting: on the success of the Araercan com-edy, "Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford" at the Sydney Criterion, the Christchurch "Evening News" has tho following senten*-«. "'The biggest-starred players in tho caste are Mr. Fred. , Miss Josephine Coban, and Mr. Harry Corson Clarke." Whether this is a Missing Word Competition or not we cannot with certainty say, but as no prize is offered for the reader who supplies the missing word, we may hazard the opinion that it isn't. Anyway, the name of the actor described as "Mr. Fred. " is Niblo. It's rather an uncommon name, and maybe the theatrical scribe of the "News" writes.a fist like that) of Horace Greeley, so that the collective composing and proofreading staff may be forgiven if they failed to decipher it. For the same reasons they may be pardoned for transforming "Cohan" into "Coban," but there is no excuse whatever for printing "cast" as "caste." We have pointed out before that these two words are entirely different in their application. "Cast" is the allotment of parts in a play,-while "caste" is a division or grade of society. Make a note* on't, "Aspor." * * » The curtain call system, says su exchange, is so ugly, and such bad art in ninety cases out of the hundred, that ono has little patience with any scheme for its alteration. It should be abandoned altogether. However, that seems impossible, players and managers being what they are, so that tho innovation made by tho American Comedy Company playing in Sydney under the J. C. Williamson management may be welcomed as a change. Instead of the stars appearing, the whole company is formed up in a straight line near the footlights. They bow as one man. The effect is quaint, and not unpleasing- :. '*■.•*' Referring lo the Asche-Brayton production of ''The Taming of the Shrew" a Melbourne paper touched upon a notable feature of the Asche-Brayton performances when it said: "Looking down the long list of actors it is doubtful whether it would be, possible to pick out a single member of the cast who could have been bettered. Not one but spoke his lines and acted his part as if he were a finished actor. The smallest character looks as if it has been studied as carefully as tho most important." This evenness and excellence of the casts is one of the features of the Asche-Brayton productions. * # * - The "Blue Bird" Co. in Australia is presenting a comedy by Bernard Shaw, entitled "You never can tell." This is the eighth Shaw play in which Miss Madge Mcintosh, leading lady of the company, has appeared. Says she: "There are times when one feels intensely dissatisfied with a part. And the playing of it under these circumstances becomes largely mechanical— that is. if one have temperament and susceptibility. But with Bernard Shaw's plays it is different. I have never got tired of playing Shaw roles. There is always an intense satisfaction in the realisation that in speaking Shaw's lines one is saying something worth while. That is where he scores so heavily. His work lasts. A Shaw play 10 years hence will he as fresh and make just as strong an impression as at present. He writes for all time. He lasts." **. . * It is a remarkable fact that Bernard Shaw's plays, which have so steadily grown in popularity in England during the last 20 years till they are now the vogue, are scarcely known at all to Australasian audiences. The Sydney production of "You Never Can Tell" is not in the nature of an experiment, but the utilisation of a golden opportunity of presenting a Shaw comedy in the way that Shaw himself would approve. In London Shaw has himself produced every one of his plays, and with him during his three years-' -season at the Comedy Theatre was associated as stage manager and actor Mr. Norman Page, who is responsible for the Sydney production. » - ■. • One of the most pleasing stories heard lately is that amongst the vague possibilities of the future is a visit to Australia by the Irish players, bringing their fine repertoire cf Celtic drama. Each member of the organisation is an artist, and each play presented is itself a work-of art; and in all there is the new spirit, indefinable, exquisite, at once true and sad, heavy with tokens of ineffable predestination, beautifully simple and inevitably complete. In Great Britain and the United States these players have won the praise of the critics worth while. But it is reported that no season of theirs has been a financial success, and a generation of Irishmen which has been content to be made ludicrous in a hundred silly dramas has fought desperately against its countrymen being shown in a way which seems real.-Christchurch "Evening News." Until the workers know Socialism, they are the hopeless victims of Capitalism. Spread the light 1