Dramatic and Musical

Free Lance, Volume IV, Issue 169, 26 September 1903, Page 7

Dramatic and Musical

By Footlights.

DIX'S Gaiety Company, at the Theatre Royal, is still cariymg out its destiny as a joy disseminator. There are faces that grow on one in the company, but the face tha+i grew on one Sunoni is unique. Sunoni's sunny smile gives place at will to grief, joy, fear, and idiocy. It can be elongated like a penny bladder squeaker or contracted' into the hard, cold political stare of the feminine National Councillor. Sunoni, as man or woman, is fascinating. He compels attention. Go and see hir" and learn the art of grimacing. * # # The De Wynnes, of acrobatic fame, are still the strong attraction on the bill. Their supple grace, their silent humour, dexterity, and strength, stamp them, as young men on© would like to have around when the rent man comes. The Delavales, in what the bill calls their "cyclosity," are wheelers of much merit and endless 1 possibilities. The 1 Delavales are just as happy upside-down on the prancing wheel as right-side-UTK In indiarubber antics these daring people are remarkable. • * * Miss Nellie Yohe. who gains in, popularity as the weeks se-ek the shelter of the dear, dead past, is still assisting Dixians to take a joyful outlook on a Wellington world that is watching for a spring that doesn't come. The gay George Dean is at present engaged on a new vooal masterpiece, pictorially accompanied. ♦ * V Mr. Harry Hall, like good wine, needs no bush, and where Mr. Robin, Hay is there is no melancholy. Miss Birdie Foley twitters thnllingly, as is her

■n ont, and dainty Jessie Thorne scatters rose petals adown the playgoers' patih. Miss Malvmia Moore, ™ho arnved on Thursday, too late for me to welcome, comes with a reputation for brightness, and Miss Addie Fredericks, who originated the "Cloud Swing." is with her Altogether, the Gaiety Company is kept up to par by systematic engagements of all the best vaudeville people available in the colonies. * # # Fuller's Entertainers, at thei Choral Hall, are pursuing the even tenor of their way undeterred except for the occasional advent of the gentleman, who sees that there is only one layer of people. Will Watkins has gripped the people in the same place he relinquished over a year ago. He is a clever originator, and a great master in the art of hilarity. Not even the clai-on ring of the firebell can drag me from my chair when Will Watkins is •all out." * * * Sheldon Kindly is one of the large and ever-increasing army of ventriloquists. He. differs from many "voice throwers" in. that he doesn't bore one. His particular parcel of joke® do not claam to have come 1 over with William the Conqueror, and I breathe orisons of gratitude thereat. * * * Of course, no household is complete without a father or a brother who know Blutoli Jones' latest song, or the ne-nect joke of his brother BilL_ Emotion overcomes me here, and tne longsuffering comp. must bear -with tihese tear blots. There are girls in Fuller's show who can kick higher than you, and sing better, and there are endmen that say things you haven't read in the papers during the week. T'oniglht. the Titins battle for supremacy. In other words, Mr. Harris Trigger meets the brawny Herculfesi in a weight-lifting competition for the championship of New Zealand. It makes my back ache to think of it. * ■+ r'Brown's in Town." At least, he •nas until Wednesday night, when the Stine and Evans Comedy Company at the Opera House, asked, in low accents, 1 Where is Cobb ?" There is a good deal of literary merit of the light and airy kind in "Brown," who doesn't exist, but who is a "blind," created by a young husband, who wants his father to believe he is not married. If you want to build the plot, there is your material. I'm tired — \*ith laughing.

"Brown" is full of Yankee humour, quaint melolicc tuneful little songs, coon musio dashing dsuices, and assorted mirth. * # * All the people who shone in. ' Mama's New Husband." are fixed up with new characters, and I tell you, sirree, they just glisten. If Miss Olive Evans ha& not found favour m your eye© as an actress insulated with electricity, you are frog-cold. Should the rotund. Stine not have tickled you to death with his breezy style, get yourself sworn in on a coroner's jury. lhat ■« ill amuse you, maybe. * * * If the fail" fraulein, Miss Ford, fails to evoke a laugh, you will got the giggles by sitting on a pavestone m a southerly gale, wearing pyjamas only. I might say more, but my allowance of ink is giving ut. Shortly, the American Comedy Company has doiio what it bills itself to do — makes laugh. It does brisk work. It does not have any hitches, everybody can dance, fcheie are at least three remarkable voices in the show, a,nd it you laugh. It does brisk work. It does colonial public right along. * * * Claude Whaiite, one time local manager far Mr. Dix, is heading for Australia with his vaudeville show. He has been doing the glowing East. All the Australian papers call him "White." (Continued on page 20.)

Rev. Walter Bentley has left the pulpit. He is now hard at work for the Actors' Churah Alliance of America. * * * America dares to burlesque Wilson Barrett's "Quo Vadis" ' The Americans call it "Quo Bass Iss," and a new and unique Wilson Barrett is the chief butt of the fun. * * * Bob Fitzsinimons, the ex-champion boxer of the world, was last month married at San Francisco, to Miss Julia May Giffon. an actress in the "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" American A 7 anetv Company. A dog was playing a piano in a circus that must not be named the other day, when one of the audience called out 'Rats'" The dog immediately vacated his seat, and "went for" the rodents. The piano kept on playWilloughby and Geach are doing largo, brigLt things with "Mistakes Will Happen," in the big towns of the Australian Statcc. One loft scene, hay slacks and all, cost £400 to finish. They are making hay while the sun shines. * * * Miss Knight-Mollison (Mrs. Kelly) is settling down with her husband in Sydney. As money is no object, the charming actress and her lucky spouse intend globe-trotting in the hot weather, returning to Sydney when the w ind is south. * * * Rumoured that the Slapoffskis aie going into operatic management on their own, financed bv sundry promoters. Grand opera, as illustrated by ' Martha," 'La Sonnambula " ' Baiber of Seville " "Daughter of the Regiment," etc, will probably be the staplo fare. * * * The family to which Little Gulhvei (round here with Johnny Sheridan) belongs runs _n different sizes. lie has a sister aged nineteen a head shorter than himself, but, to make up for this, another brother and sister are over six fe?t high. Little Johnny does not look his twenty-eight years. * * • Dickens' plays are the fashion at Home. No less than eleven adaptations of the great writer's most popular novels are now being done in London and its suburbs. The most important is the dramatisation of "David Copperfield," at the Adelphi. Shortly, the great Beerbohm Tree is going to play Bill Sykes. in a dramatisation of "Oliver Twist " and at Christmas another eminent actor (Arthur Bouchier) is going to appear as Caleb Plummer in a new stage version of "The Cricket on the Hearth." Dickens, though an ardent lover of the stage and a keen and admirable amateur actor, hated to see his works produced as plays. Here are some mems. ro artists wellknown in New Zealand, now m America — Harry Roberts has just concluded a season with Mrs. Leslie Carter, in Dv Barry." Miss Stella Treacey (little Stella of that ilk) is now a leading feature in "The Chinese Honeymoon," New York. Walter Howe, late of Bland Holt's company, has just concluded a tour with Mrs Patrick Campbell, through the States. Sydney Deane has been doing lead in the "Knickerbocker Girl" musical comedy, at the Herald Square Theatre. New York. Frank Perlev has just secured Miss Nance O'Neill for his management, to open in "Macbeth," in New York. * * * Pain's enormous firework show , "Pompeii," at Manhattan Beach, United States, which, by the w r ay, had an attendance of over 12,000 on July 4th, was, a fortnight afterwards, the scene of an attack by a super in the show that completely overshadowed the destruction of the city. The super was-, so the story goes, a large bull, which rejoices in the name of Caesar Augustus, and at each performance assisted the High Priests in their religious rights. After Vesuvius has been in eruption, and Naples destroyed every night, Mr. Caesar was led back to his villa to await the next earthquake. It was mosquitoes that caused Ceesar to emerge from the bed one night and wander into the Bay of Naples, where he tried to climb into the Barge of Arbaoes, which sank to the bottom of the bay. * * * Thereup~ - the bull proceeded to demolish in quick succession the temples of the High Priest and Isis, Arbaces' Palaces, and many other buildings- in fact, laying all the place in ruins. In the morning, Mr. Caesar Augustus was discovered in the act of having a heavy breakfast off a large section of Vesuvius, and was captured. And now he is out of a job.