Plays and Pictures.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 3, Issue 86, 1 November 1912, Page 6

Plays and Pictures.

j ; Aftor a record season, unparalleled jin the stage annals of Wellington, the j Oscar Ascho-Lily Brayton Company hns I passed on to Christchnrch, No dramatic I attraction is announcod for the local ' Opera House till the. advent of the Bert ! Bailey Company, which commences a season on December 14 with "On Our j Selection." a successful dramatisation iof Steele Rudd's well-known and popnjlar Australian book of that name. The I Now Zealand Pour of the company at Auckland on November 7. ! ... ! The motion picture actors in Berlin are forming a trades union, in order to i secure, higher salaries. ! ♦ .' > * After two years' tourinc. the Ham- ; iHon-Plimmer-Denniston Dramatic Co. J will give t/heir final performance nt i Auckland on November 7. The oomjpany will be disbanded on returning to I .Sydney. Mr. Allan Hamilton and Mr. j Harry Plimrnor will form a new eomj pany in tbe early part of nest year. j Mr. Reynolds Penniston is retiring from the partnership. * V « It is elaimpd that "Kismet" was shown in Christchurch t>o better advantage*, than in London, as the Christchurch stage is larger than the London stage used for the piece. The electric lighting plant in the Ohristo.burch fheatre also is better than that in any other place in New Zealand, and is as good as that in any of the Australian jtheatres. Lighting enters largely into 1 the. success of "Kismet."

When Clara. Butt was in Wellington during her antipodean tour a smart boy sent a request for her autograph in tbe following lines: —

Of autographs of those of fame I've gathered not a few, But one illustrious namo I miss, And, madam, that is you. So kindly send one little line A schoolboy's heart to cheer, And make his autograph book A thousand times more dear And as we cannot see what time May have for us in store, I yet may be Lord Chancellor (Or even something more). When that event takes place, I'll see That you shall have a line from mc!

Although large sums of money are taken by the Asohe-Brayton Company during the seasons in the chief cities of New Zealand, the expenses do not leave much room for profit. For instance, the lighting expenses alone tot up to £50 a week. It is heavy details of this natmre that pile up the expemses. To give another illustration, the special train engaged between Auckland and Wellington cost- over £300, and the steamer fares of the hundred travelling members of the company from Sydney to Auckland and Auckland to the Bluff and the Bluff to Melbourne are considerably over £1200.

Definite arrangements have been made for the New Zealand tour of Madame Kirkby Lunn—perhaps the contralto most in demand in the artistic centres of the world at the present day —to commence at Auckland on November 25. Three concerts will be given in that city, after which the diva will visit Wellington, commencing December 2, where another trio of recitals will be given. Madame Kirkby Lunn will then sing at Wanganui, Napier, Christchurch, Timaru and Dunedin.

Oscar Asche is a devotee of the strenuous life. He is one of those men who have a lust for work, who never seem to grow tired, and are happy only when they are wrestling with big ideas and small details. He refuses to produce anything that is not as perfect as his ingenuity can make it, and 'he abhors anything that is slipshod or stamped with the signs of hurry. He takes no risk. He refuses to play on the night of arrival in a city; he insists that the theatre must always be vacant on the night previous to the opening in order that a full rehearsal might bo held.

The playing of the part of la go by Laurence Irving, in Beerbohm Tree's London revival of "Othello" has raised the question—was the man* who poisoned the mind' of the noble Moor mad ? The "Era" critic wrote: "The lago of Mr. Laurence Irving is quaint a,hd original. As he soliloquises, ho catches a fly and deliberately burns it to death in the candle; he 'hocusses' Cassio's drink with a drus; he does a pas seul to distract the lieutenant's attention from his manoeuvres; he sits on a table and chews almonds while uttering tbe most depraved imaginations; he skips on and off the stage lightly, like a 'tricky spirit' of evil; he spits on the Venetian flag when nobody is looking; he wears a 'pudding-basin' helmet, suggestive of the days of boyhood. lago was Machia-velli-mad, just as Napoleon, in the latter part of his career, was universal-conquest-mad, and Antony was Cleo-patra-mad. He plotted and schemed and pulled the strings because it was 'bis nature to,' and he could not help it. The irony of the character is that this extraordinary madman thinks all the sane people in the play are imbeciles. He steers straight for death and torture with a sneer on bis lips for silly things like love, patriotism and honor, and a sarcastic smile for the simpletons who believe in them. This doubtless is the view which that accomplished student of morbid mentality, Mr. Laurence Irving, takes of lago, and his extremely interesting performance must be regarded in the light of such analysis."