Born with a Love for Shakespeare

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 176, 15 October 1927, Page 24 (Supplement)

Born with a Love for Shakespeare

LORNA FORBES COMES OF A STAGE FAMILY HUMBLE BEGINNING “I used to call myself the 'last resource’ actress. That was in the days before my stage life really began.” Over a cup of tea Lorna Forbes confessed that her stage career began in a most humble way, but she had family tradition behind her and was born with the desire for a life “on the other side of the footlights.” For generations Miss Forbes’s family has been closely associated with the stage. Her great-grandfather was an actor, her grandmother, Carrie George, was one of the best known Shakespearean actresses in Australia, and her father was Wilson Forbes, also remembered as one of the actormanagers of Australia’s earlier days. Auckland audiences have seen Miss Forbes interpreting many of Shakespeare’s noble women. This is not her first visit to New Zealand, and we hope it will not be her last. She has the perfect voice for Shakespeare—musical and full-toned. Her characters are never the same, as those who have seen

her Nurse in “Romeo and Juliet,” her Olivia in “Twelfth Night,” and her Jessica in “The Merchant of Venice” will agree. “My father preached Shakespeare to me as a child,” she said. “I have been bred on his lovely words. I never tire of his work, for the more one plays it the more beauty one finds hidden in the speeches of his characters.” Miss Forbes was an understudy for many years before she got her real chance. That was at Ballarat, when she was called suddenly from Melbourne to take a part at a moment’s notice. Trembling with fear her legs would scarcely carry her on to the stage, but she emerged from the ordeal with colours flying and an assured place in the world of limelight and grease-paint. Miss Forbes has been with Mr. Allan Wilkie's company for a number of years, playing in comedy and melodrama before he really inaugurated his now-famous Shakespearean company. She remembers a rather timorous firstnight performance of ‘Mrs. Warren’s Profession” at Perth, though now she agrees that neither the audience nor anyone else would be timid about Mrs. Warren or her profession, for it has been exploited in many stage plays since Bernard Shaw wrote his so-called “shocker.” Miss Forbes has also graced “The Silver King” and “The School For Scandal.” When fire destroyed Mr. Wilkie’s stage property some time ago in Australia Miss Forbes lost all those which belongings, at least all those which she she treasured. She recalled that among the few stage “props” which were recovered by Mr. Wilkie were Ophelia’s i coffin and a charred copy of the prompt book of “Much Ado About Nothing.” “No I have no difficulty in studying a part,” said Miss Forbes, who knows her Shakespeare very, very thoroughly. “I like to study in the open, among the trees. I find that I cannot do it indoors. I also prefer to study my part aloud.” “I wonder does one live too much in the past,” remarked Miss Forbes as she idly stirred the tea leaves at the bottom of her cup. “Do you believe in signs?” asked the interviewer, who had had his fortune told from the leaves on many occasions.

“Well, yes, perhaps,” she replied. “One dreams so much, wearing those clothes and speaking those lines of other days. But humanity hasn’t changed since Shakespeare wrote about it,” she added with a laugh. The interviewer thought that perhaps Miss Forbes contemplated a change from Shakespeare to modern plays, but she said that she was not sure about it.

This accomplished actress was born in Melbourne, and has had all her experience in Australia and New Zealand. If she goes abroad in search of fresh fields, her departure will be a distinct loss to Mr. Wilkie’s Company. Meanwhile she is perfectly happy in New Zealand. “If you have ever come from the arid parts of Queensland to the green glamour of New Zealand, you will realise why I love your country,” was her tribute.

Before leaving Africa Guy Bates Post said in an interview: “If I were asked to single out the most appreciative city in the Commonwealth of Australia, from the theatrical entrepreneur’s point of view, I would unhesitatingly give my vote to Sydney, for if there is any real merit at all in the offering the Harbour City’s discerning amusement seekers will assuredly find it out.” London taste, apparently, did not agree with that of Sydney. Possibly the discerning amusement seekers were out of town when “The Climax” arrived, for it departed within very few weeks.

“Camille” on the screen recalls the countless actresses who have portrayed “Camille” on the stage in Australia and New Zealand. Siynara Marjeroni, Nellie Stewart, Janet Achurch, Mrs. Brown Potter, Louise Pomeroy, Ada Ward, Eugenie Duggan, Nance O’Neil and Minnie Tittle Brune are a few who have scored as Dumas’s sickly heroine and, of course, Nellie Bramley’s performance must not be forgotten. * * * “Michael Orme,” the authoress of “The Lonely Road,” produced at the “Q” Theatre, Kew, recently, has accomplished something of a feat—she has created one of the most impossible prigs who ever posed as a stage hero. He is supposed to be a painter of genius—at least, he tells everyone, generally at the top of his voice, that he is a genius. He even goes so far as to borrow the last few shillings from a girl who is herself on the verge of poverty. Yet he declines with an air of scorn in the next act to marry a rich and middle-aged—woman who cannot apparently see beyond his good looks. Perhaps it was not altogether th© fault of Robert Harris, who placed the part of the King of Prigs, that' he spouted his lines as though he were “tub-thumping” in Hyde Park. In contrast was the quieter method of Ethel Irving, as the woman who wanted to marry the alleged genius. Yet even she could not escape the | artificiality .which surrounded the sMi stey*-- —