Plays and Pictures.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 3, Issue 82, 4 October 1912, Page 6

Plays and Pictures.

Beat the big drum and shout Hurrah! The Aufkl;md was:iD of tho Oscar Asc.hoLily IJmyton Company has been a bourn of booms, a triumph of triumphs, and assuredly the Wellington Sanson of the company, commencing on Monday next, October 7, will be a repetition of the Auckland experience. The opening production is the vividly realistic and revengeful drama of Oriental life. "Kismet," which all Wellington has been agog with interest to see ever siniv} the New Zealand tour of the company was projected. Mr. Aso he has a great part as Ha-jj the beggar, whoso, "crowded hour of glorious life" is pregnant with fate, and tbo company is one of the strongest allround that has pvf>r struck these parts. Somp Shakespearian classics follow the run of 'Kismet," and the season will ho oiio of rare delights. Xn lovor of the highest and host in dramatic art fan afford to miss one ot tho several prorliio t ions.

Th» author of "Kimr>H" would have a urpFd difficulty in recognising his name as printed-in pa-per and on poster in the Dominion. It is maltreated in its mis-spelling "siithin' erne]. ,. The ignorance of printers' proof-renders— or .should we lot thorn down light and say <\irolff;snoss;'--is amazing. But that's tho worst of having a name like "Knoblauch." Nine out of ten times it's bound to bo printed inaccurately.

Tho. Sydno.y "Sun," commenting on the visit of Ma-dame Kirkby Lunn, shortly to bo heard in tho Dominion, says that, "her lii.rsjp and exquisitelytoned voice, marvellous artistry and rare versatility, entitle her to be ranked as the greatest of all contraltos who have appeared in this city."

Mr. Borneo Gardner, late of Wellington, has made a. big hit on t'other side of the Tasman Sea. "Thero has never been a whistler like him in Australia before," said a well-known manager who had beard Borneo Gardner extend himself. Mr. Gardner is making his first Australian appearances at the Tivoli, and it is said of him.that he is the finest whistler the world lias ever heard. There is no bird he cannot imitate with such precision as to deceive even the bird itself. "In my opinion," went on the manager, "the Tivoli people ought to show him in a canary cage. He has legs like a canary, anyhow, and I should not be surprised to learn that he slept perched in a tree, and that his daily diet consists of assorted birdseed." _ » • Augustus: "lam not fond of the stage, Violet, but I hear your father on the stairs, and I think I had better go before the foot lights!" * » * Dainty Fanny Powers, the wellknown music hall artist on the Eickards' circuit, is about to retire from the stage. She is to be married on December 23 to a wealthy Adelaide gentleman. Fanny began fourteen years ago as "Little Baby Powers" at the Sydney Tivoli Theatre, and has remained on the Rickards circuit ever since. When she gave up being a child performer she made a great hit as an imitator, and has for years past delighted audiences all over Australasia with her clever imitations of various actors and actresses. The Worker wishes her a long life of wedded bliss. May her only troubles be "little ones."

When everyone is dismissing.the success of "Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford" ab the Criterion, and trying to determine why it is succeeding so, says the "Sun," all are agreed that it is a bright play. But bright plays well actted' sometimes fail, much less become a boom. Harry Corson Clarke, than whom probably no more experienced comedian has ever appeared in Sydney, comes forward with a solution. "I'll tell you how it is," he says. "It's because the comedy is wholesome right through. There isn't a doubtful line in it. Every situation is clean, good fun. Again, the comedy is close to life, and even if it is an exaggeration it keeps within reasonable bounds of probability."

"The stage not only refines the manners, but it is the best teacher of morals, for it is the truest and most intelligible picture of life." When William Hazlitt wrote that 70 years ago it was, doubtless, true enough, but quite another stago has arrived since then.