In the Land of Few Amusements

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 74, 18 June 1927, Page 22

In the Land of Few Amusements

How Communists Dress for the Opera THEATRES IN MOSCOW Captain 11. C. Smart recently visited Russia and Siberia , where he spent some weeks investigating conditions for himself. In the following article he describes the theatres and amusements in Moscow. Of amusements there are few in Moscow. The people cannot afford the money. There are a few cinemas, but the films are poor and badly shown. A show usually runs for one hour, and the admission prices are about 20 per cent, higher than in England. The world-famous Moscow Opera House is crowded nightly. Opera and ballet are given alternately. The Proletariat are given seats cheap. They do not believe in dress clothes; in the royal box, in the boxes, and in the stalls I saw young Communists in leggings, sweaters, and long hair; and the audience is generally shabbily dressed. Of enthusiasm or applause there is little or none. I sat through the Russian-made opera, "Sadka,” which was well done; only on two occasions was there any applause—once for a a high note and once for a low note. HUMBUG The authorities in Moscow do all in their power to impress the foreigner and endeavour to let him see only those things which they want. It is all done in a very skilful way, and many of the tame visitors to Moscow have evidently been led around. Foreigners are at once placed in touch with the Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries. The principal officers are Jewish, courteous and helpful. They show one the window-dressed side of social and economic life in Moscow and report all one’s movements and any business one may do to the proper authority. This humbug is obvious at every turn. I visited one of the largest Russian woollen mills Just outside Moscow; the mill is well run, but a lot of the machinery is out of date. As 1 left the mill I found at the entrance a dozen children aged about eight to ten. I was informed that they were the children of women workers, and were looked after in a special home while the mothers work. This is characteristic of the Russian Communists; they will put before the foreigner a pretty picture of how well they 'ook after a comparative handful of children and at the same time do nothing to improve the shocking conditions of Juvenile life throughout the Republics. A RECORD DIVORCE I had on appointment with an official in Moscow. He was half an hour late and most apologetic. As an after-thought he light-heartedly explained he had that morning divorced his wife. I was interested, so he fully explained how it is done in the land of the Proletariat, where they have gone the whole tog and are quite fair to both parties. The present law came into force in January. If either husband or wife desires to divorce it is only necessary to produce the identification paper, which every Russian must have, with a request that he or she be divorced, and the business is done. Soviet official recently came in for sharp criticism in the Press for a record divorce. He took unto himself one afternoon a wife. On arriving home he found that the bride was not quite what he wanted, so, giving her the sum of ten kopecks (twopence) for her tramway-car fare, he sent her back to her people and at 10 next morning divorced her.

Mr. Matheson Lang has returned to Kngland after his holiday in Sicily to start rehearsals of “The Wandering jew," which is to be given a performance at Drury Lane on the afternoon of June 23 in the presence of the King and Queen in aid of King George’s Pension Fund for Actors and Actresses. The play is to have six actpresses in the chief parts which occur in its four phases. In the first phase Mr. Lang will play “opposite” Hutin Britton ami Madge Titheradge. In the second phase Gladys Cooper will take over the leading woman's part. In phases three and four. Fay Compton, Edith Evans, and Edna Best will play the feminine leads. Sir Gerald du Maurier and George Grossmith have two-line parts toward the end of the play, In which about 50 of the most distinguished figures of the London stage will appear during the afternoon. * * *

Tallulah Bankhead is to play a new sort of part—for her —in “The Garden of Eden,’’ which is to follow “The Gold Diggers” at the Lyric Theatre, in London. She is to be “a good girl.” This will certainly be a change after “Fallen Angels” (in which she was supposed to take too much champagne), “They Knew What They Wanted” (in which her husband wanted a child and got one which was not his), and “The Gold 1 Diggers,” which is all about rapacious chorus girls. “The Garden of Eden” is to have a trial week at Edinburgh, and the cast includes Gladys Folliott, Barbara Gott, and Hugh Williams, who has a big part.

The Auckland Little Theatre Society will present its second production at the concert chamber on July 12, 13, and 14, when St. John Hankin’s brilliant comedy, “The Cassilis Engagement,” will be staged. The cast includes amateur players of distinction, and the committee feels confident that the performance will be of a very high standard. The secretary has enrolled many new subscribers since the production of “You Never Can Tell.” This satisfactory state of affairs, coupled with the fact that the membership has more than doubled itself since the 1927 season, is a most satisfactory state of affairs.

Here is the plot of “Mr. What’s Flis Name,” the new play Seymour Hicks i has produced in London:—Adolphe Noblet lost his memory in a railway accident, and for five years he lived under the name of Leopold Trebel, and became the most expert bobber and shingler in Paris. Ladies loved the way in which he handled their lobes. He married Suzanne, who bore him four bouncing boys in three years—two sets of twins—and he was sought after by fashionable women and their maids. One day he was summoned to the apartment of Madame Corton, whose first husband, an inventor of sauces, had been killed five years earlier in a railway accident. The grief-stricken widow wore her weeds for two years, and then married Gustave Corton, a financier, who took up his predecessor’s sauce and made a fortune out of it. When Leopold Trebel came into Madame Corton’s presence she instantly identified him as her first husband, which was awkward for her, as she had not only married Gustave, but had had a baby by him. Leopold, however, did not recognise her. He remembered nothing that had happened prior to the accident. A hypnotic doctor officiously recalled his past to him, and the result of this interference was to complicate life for everybody. In the end, Leopold pretented to have

his memory obliterated a second time, and went back to Suzanne, but not without first tipping the wink to Madame Corton, that he was not as forgetful as he seemed.. If ever she needed a good bobber or shingler! . . . This is a play of situations, and very diverting ones, too. rather than of dialogue, says Sir John Ervine. To be

blunt, some of the dialogue was awful, but the play admirably serves as a vehicle for Mr. Hicks’s rollicking acting. C. W. Somerset gave a good performance as a wine-bibber, and Mary Merrall, Frances Doble, and C. M. Hallard gallantly acted up to Mr. Hicks.

“The Zoo” is the: title of the new play in which Michel Arlen has collaborated with Wincheli Smith, and which is soon to be done at the Globe Theatre, London. Margaret Bannerman and Lady Tree are to play in it. And since the new reading would seem to be:— “All the world’s a stage And all the men and women merely beasties!” the production should be of considerable controversial interest.

E. J. Carroll spent last week at Sutton Court, Stanton Lacy, recuperating from a severe cold, says an overseas daily. Great interest has been aroused by the proposal to bring an all-Aus-tralian dramatic company to London for the production of an Australian play. Mr. Carroll has also responded warmly to the suggestion that he should give a short season of grand opera in the West End with an Australian cast. As he is very much liked by Australian artists and has ample resources at his command, there would be no one more sure of sympathetic co-operation. In a recent issue of “The Scotsman,” Sir Harry Lauder described “E.J.,” as he is known to his friends, as “the whitest man in white Australia." It is of interest to note that in, the same article it was stated that all the Lauder tours which Mr. Carroll has conducted have been gone through without the formality of a contract.