State land in Australia.

Free Lance, Volume III, Issue 155, 20 June 1903, Page 22

State land in Australia.

DURING a recent visit to Melbourne and Sydney, I took the opportunity to visit the various shows that were worth seeing, and I purpose now to set down briefly the impressions I carried away. In the first place, however, let me express my warm acknowledgments to the manar gers for their invariable courtesy and kindness. In the second place, I was struck by the very complete, and often elaborate, arrangement® tihat were made to ensure the comfort of playgoers, and also by the really admirable wav in which all these, places were conducted. So much by way of preamble. * • *

In the month of May the reigning attraction, at Melbourne was Shakespeare's comedy of fairyland, '"A Midsummer Niafht's Dream." For four solid weeks there had been an unbroken succession of crowded houses at the Princess's, and as the fifth week opened the cry was "stiU they come." „ • •

A more superb production of a Shakespearian play it would be difficult to imagine. It was, in truth, a dream of loveliness. lam told it cost Mr. Geo. Musgrove £4,000 to stage it. The resources of histrionic art, music, painting, the costumier's skill and fancy, and the ingenuity of the stage mechanic were all drawn upon to furnish forth a setting •worthy of tne most poetic and delicate creation 6i the immortal bard. In the result competent judges have declared even Sir Henry Irving was outdone, and the Lyceum production was improved upon. * * •

Mr. Robert Courtneidge was brought out from Home to supervise the enterprise, and a very choice company of English actors and actresses came out with him. Mr. Alberto Zelman, jun., was placed in control of a strong orchestra, and the play was enriched with Mendelssohn's delightful music. Nothing could be more dainty, graceful, and ethereal than the scenes depicting the fairy revels, with the fays and elves gambolling on the stage, or swinging from flies to stage and back again on invisible wires. * *

The part of Act 111., wherein Puck " o'ercasts the night" to lead the distracted lovers of Athens through a maze of crosspurposes, was a positive triumph of stage craft. While Lysander, Hermia, Demetrius, and Helena he sleeping upon the sward, where in weariness and despair they had cast themselves, the passing of the night and the return of day were splendidly pourtrayed by the very gradual lightening of the scene, and as day broadened there was the sound of birds twittering and breaking into song. Mendelssohn's beautiful nocturne accompanied this remarkable transformation scene. * * •

Titania was delightfully impersonated by Miss Nora Kenn, a charming young English actress of great talent and natural grace. The part of Oberon fitted Miss Dora Rignold like a glove. She possesses a fine figure, handsome mobile features, and a good singing voice. Miss Dorothy Marsdin, with her petite form and quick play of facial expression, made an ideal Puck. Miss Cynthia Brooke and Miss Maud Milton (the latter from Sir Henry Irving's Lyceum Company) took the parts of Hermia and Helena, and spoke their lines with refined elocution. *. * *

Mr. Alfred Bucklaw, an actor of the Julius Knight stamp, made a capital Duke of Athens ; and Mr. Norman Partriege and Mr. Thos. Holding, as Lysander and Demetrius, were a gallant pair of youthful lovers. The low comedy parts of Bottom, Quince, Snug, Flute, Snout, and Starveling were all humourously sustained, but Mr. W. H. Denny's presentation of the role of Bottom, the weaver, was the paragon. It was the quintessence of Shakespearean fun. He caught to a nicety the great master's ideal, and every look, gesture, and vocal inflection was full of significance. Such an impersonation was alone worth going a long day's journey to see. • • *

By the way, a good story is told of a certain lawyer in Melbourne who fancies himself a heaven-born critic. He found fault with some of Mr. Denny's " business " in the play, and wrote to the management explaining how the thing ought to be done. Mr. Denny replied. This particular business, he pointed out, was introduced " to indicate and underline the intense egotism of the selfsufficient Ass so thoroughly and perfectly drawn by the great Mastermind. It is

(By Footlight.)

exquisitely true to nature, and were Bottom a living embodiment at the present time I can easily imagine him writing letters to actois telling them what they should or should not do." The actor scored. » * *

Mr. Ernest H. Collins is manager of the Princess's, and he fills the bill admirably. He understands his business thoroughly, and is held in high esteem both in front of the stage and behind it. With so able a man as E. H. Collins in charge Mr. Musgrove can take trips Home and elsewhere with a light heart. * * *

I see that the " Midsummer Night's Dream " has now finished its run at the Princess's, and has been succeeded by " As You Like It," which has been produced on a scale of equal splendour. * * *

The Royal Comics were in full career at Her Majesty's, and when I called round " Paul Jones " was engaged upon a highly profitable cruise. Miss Florence Young, as gay and debonair as ever, made a dashing young pnvateersman, and sang her music with very fine effect. Some melancholy individual wrote to the press saying that Florence wasn't masculine enough for Paul Jones's part. Hey figure was too soft in outline. However, the public who crowded the house every night seemed perfectly content that Florence's outlines were described in soft curves, and not in hard angles. Miss Carrie Moore was a very piquant Yvonne, and Miss Maud Chetwynd as Chopinette scolded and banged Bouillabaisse about with cheerful vigour. George Laun fairly revelled in this part, but Frank Lear didn't seem to be at home as " the Insect." I couldn't help comparing him with Pollard's Albert, to the latter's advantage.

* • * Hugh Ward was in great form as Don Trocadero, and skipped about the stage like a spring-heeled Jack. Mr. Reginald Roberts, who has an agreeable tenor voice, used it very nicely in the role of Rufino. There was an interpolated song in the first act, " If you were true to me," that enabled Mr. Roberts to score a nightly encore. The Royal Ballerinas are a leading colonial institution, and they invest the second act with one of their most charming dances —a bourree it's called. Of course it is the poetry of motion —a regular poem in fact. "My Lady Molly," the latest London success, by the composer of "San Toy" and "The Geisha," was to follow, but I couldn't wait for her levee. By the way, a pretty song specially written by Mr. Alfred Hill was one of the notable things in " Lady Molly." * • «

Mr. J. C. Williamson has one of the handsomest theatres in the colonies in Her Majesty's, and one of the smartest and most courteous managers in Mr. Geo. Talhs. Mr. Talhs is well known in New Zealand, and no one who has met him will hesitate to endorse and back this opinion. As for the theatre, its foyer, lounge, and promenade, where dress-circle patrons may retire to chat and refresh themselves between the acts, is quite up to the style that obtains in the best theatres at Home.

* * # When Willoughby and Geach tire of raking in Australian dollars, and can find time for a holiday m New Zealand, apoplectic people, for whom uncontrollable and persistent laughter might be fatal, will do well to give a wide berth to " Mistakes will Happen." It is a regular screamer as played by the WilloughbyGeach Company. "Charley's Aunt" isn't in the same street with it, and " The Private Secretary" is quite luneieal in comparison. I saw it at the Bi]ou in Melbourne, which Manager Geach had succeeded in turning into a popular playhouse in spite of repeated failures by other entrepreneurs. There was not a dull moment in the play. It sparkled incessantly. You started to laugh as soon as George Willoughby (an actor with a play to sell) comes on at the lifting of the curtain, and you laugh on in spite of yourself (with brief intermissions for refreshment, of couise,) until you wonder at your own frivolity.

• * » Willoughby as Tom Genowin, the aforesaid actor with a play to sell between him and bankruptcy, would knock smiles out of an Egyptian mummy. He is secretly married to Dorothy Maylaud (Miss Rovy Barton), the leading actress of the theatre at which he is leading man, and their boardinghouse landlady has no notion of their relationship. This, of course, makes

it particularly natural that " mistakes will happen." In fact these mistakes are the staple of the fun. It reaches its climax in the second act, in Mr. Hunter-Chase's carnage-house, the two floors of which form a scenic "set." * • •

Mrs. Genowin is anxious to get Mr. Hunter-Chase to buy her husband's play, and she calls upon Mr. Hunter-Chase by appointment to read over the MS. He delects the carriage-house for that purpose. Mrs. Hunter-Chase is stage-struck, and engages Mr. Genowin to give her lessons in acting. The carriage-house is also chosen by her as the theatre of action. Both couples arrive nearly at the same time, much to the annoyance of the coachman, who is flirting with Linda, the German domebtic. The efforts of each of the three couples to keep out of the way of the others, and their game of cross-purposes, makes broad farce of the funniest possible kind.

The company is exceedingly strong. George Willoughby, as we all know, is a comedian of the first water, and Miss Roxy Barton is a charming and talented actress. Miss Roland Watts-Phillips, who plays Mrs. Hunter-Chase, is the best old woman on the colonial stage—l have heard it asserted that her equal is not to be found at Home—and Tom Cannam (Hunter-Chase) is a capital old man. Such well-known people as Geo. Leopold, Edwin Lester, Frank Denton, and Tom Leonard were also in this admirable comedy troupe. They are doing so well on the other side that it may be a long time ere we see them.

« • • Harry Rickards' vaudeville show (managed by Fred Aydon) was running to first-class business at the Melbourne Opera House, its permanent abode. Rudinoff was the bright particular star in this constellation. His turn takes fully half-an-hour, and as a " draw " he ranks in the same category with Cinqtievalli, Sandow, and the Dartos. But he is a greater artist than any of these. He is a skilful painter, a clever shadowgraphist, and a first-class whistler ; also, a patter humorist. His smoke pictures constitute the principal act. A framed sheet of enamelled paper is held over a brazier until it is well smoked. Then with quick finger-stokes the artist draws a striking picture, and to show you there are no prepared lines, he converts it, with some more dashes of his finger upon the soot into quite a different picture. In his quaint broken English he supposes you won't regard it as a finished work of art, and he cheerfully admits it is '"rude enough."

* • • Rudinoff then, with the aid of a lantern and his own digits, throws a number of very amusing shadow pictures on the screen, and finally he treats you to a whistling performance —an amusing imitation of a courtship duet between a couple of amorous nightingales.

* * • Another excellent turn is furnished by the Vesuvio Concert Company of Italian artistes who were imported direct from Naples by enterprising Harry Rickards. It is a male troupe of six or seven performers who appear in velvet pantaloons with sashes and stiffly starched striped shirts. They are Al on the mandolin, and two of them are vocalists —one a stout little tenor and the other a tall and middle-aged baritone. Their music is operatic and they execute it nicely.

* * • Ernest Fitts and James Opie were also warbling for Mr. Rickards, and other turns were contributed by the Lingard Sisters, Hill and Silvainy (very daring and expert trick cyclists), Jack Harrison (club swinger), the Moulton trio of gymnasts. Ida May with her coon songs, and the bioscope. And there are others. * * *

Bland Holt in early May was in possession of the Theatre Royal in Melbourne and Manager Christie Simonsens was beaming blandly through his specs, upon the crowds that besieged the box office each night to follow the fortunes of " The Prodigal Daughter." This play was performed throughout New Zealand on the occasion of the realistic Blands last visit, but, of course, not exactly with the elaboration of detail that accompanies the production m Australia. Bland Holt is dear to the hearts of the great bulk of colonial playgoers who like their drama full of desperate situations and tuned up to the G string of sensation. He had just finished a 13 months' season at Sydney, but there were signs on the stage horizon that Melbourne hadn't staying power enough to come near that record. Blands people never leave him. They form a happy family. Walter Baker was still the beauteous hero as of >ore, and Albert Norman, the bold, bad, handsome

villain. Miss Frances Boss and Miss Harrie Ireland and Mrs. Bland Holt all had their old familiar parts, and so too had Arthur Styan, Chas. Brown and the rest of them. ♦ * •

" The Price of Peace" was the next Drury Lane galvanic battery to follow " The Prodigal Daughter," and the scenic artists were busy trying to reproduce in life-like form an accident ward at St. Thomas's Hospital, the terrace of the House of Commons, a Niagara Skating Rink, Westminister Abbey, with a marriage service in progress, the House of Commons during a debate, and finally the sinking of the yacht Marigold. t * *

Edward Lloyd's farewell season of four concerts in Melbourne, in favour of which his projected New Zealand tour was abandoned, proved a hard frost. Each concert cost Messrs. Williamson and Musgrove—the organisers of the tour — i£3oo, and yet at the first of this farewell series there could not have been .£5O in the house. As a consequence, singing in the vast Town Hall was much like singing in a vault. New Zealand was a neglected gold mine.

• • • The great English tenor was quite worthy of his high reputation. In physique he is a large sized vocalist. His chest measurement must be considerable. His manner is confident, and he sings without the least trace of effort. The voice is a beautifully clear and dulcet tenor, perfectly flexible, even in quality from its lowest note to the top of its compass, and surcharged with expression. Mr. Lloyd is an artist to the finger tips. His production and phrasing proclaim the refined and educated singer, and his enunciation is singularly distinct. His forte is unquestionably ballad singing, and I have heard no tenor to equal him in this line. His contributions at the concert under review were the recitative and air, " 0 'Tis a Glorious Sight," from Weber's " Oberon," " The Star of Bethlehem," " Sally in Our Alley," and " Tom Bowling.' 1 They were exquisite gems of song. * # ♦

Mr. Lloyd was assisted by Miss Emily Foxcroft (a fine contralto), Mr. W. A. Peterkin (a capital baritone), Miss Jean Newman (a light soprano), Miss May Mukle (a young and capable 'cellist), and Herr Scherek, the well-known pianist, who was billed as musical-director. (To be continued.)