Sunday Theatres

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 312, 24 March 1928, Page 22

Sunday Theatres

Manager to Make Test in London DEMAND BY THE PUBLIC A move is to be made by Andre Chariot, the London theatrical producer, to test the possibility of opening theatres on Sunday. As regulations stand at present, Sunday plays may be given only by a society which sells the seats beforehand to its members, and no money may be taken at the doors. Stage hands, theatre attendants and musicians can be paid for their services. Ho salary can be given to actors and actresses, but they may receive an “honorarium.” Mr. Chariot intends to test the strength of the Sunday play-going public with a performance of “Icebound” to a society he is organising. If the response shows an increasing demand for this form of entertainment he intends to confer with the Lord Chamberlain in an effort to secure a relaxation of existing regulations, particularly as regards payment of actors and actresses. “I quite agree with those people who are opposed to a seven-day week in the theatrical profession,” Mr. Chariot said recently. “But at present there is more unemployment than employment in the theatre world, and it would be an easy matter to get together a special company for Sunday plays. “Instead of giving a play only once, I would put it on twice eath Sunday for as long as it would run. But on this basis we should have to be able to pay the players’ salaries.” Asked if he considered his movement the thin end of the wedge of regular Sunday opening of theatres, Mr. Chariot said: “It all depends on the demand. If the public wants a thing it is for them to insist on getting it. “It seems ridiculous that a person can play golf on Sundays, attend the cinema, go to restaurants and dances, see a cabaret show, listen to the wireless, play cricket, football, or lawn tennis, or go for joy rides by char-a-banc, and yet not be allowed to go to a theatre. “Theatre-going, apparently, is practically the only form of entertainment denied him on Sundays.”

In the Sydney Courts recently Tresadern, 21 years of age, an actress and very, pretty, asked the judge to order her husband, Leonard Tresadern, an actor, attached to the “Mercenary Mary” Company, to hand over their child to her, which had been in his possession since February 7. Tresadern’s stage name is Leonard Rich. He was here with “No, No Nanette.” * * * After backing Guy Bates Post and Dorothy Brunton in “The Climax” at the Little Theatre, London, Hugh D. Mclntosh finds himself poorer by £2,000. The play, which was produced in Sydney last year, failed to please London, and, after it had run a few weeks, Mclntosh had to close down the show to avoid further loss. Guy Bates Post and Miss Brunton have since left for America.