In the Days of Actor-Managers

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 323, 7 April 1928, Page 20

In the Days of Actor-Managers

Changes in the Theatre LESS UNPLEASANT PLAYS One of the principal changes in the theatre within recent years has been the decline of the influence of the actor-manager. The war period, with the unsettled times that followed, did much toward causing the dwindling of the old system, but it was beginning to pass even before those days. To be a leading actor-manager a man needed exceptional energy and ability, not only in artistic matters, but in attention to practical details. Even if he had strong financial backing there was the problem of making the best use of it, and of allowing for all the uncertainties of taste and fashion in entertainment. An actor-manager had trying parts of his own to study in addition to supervising the work of the company; and, though he might have many trusted assistants in details of staging, production and maangement, his task was heavy and his return was not adequate always for his efforts.

Men like Irving and Tree prided themselves on the accuracy and the magnificence of the staging of their period plays; and their reward sometimes was to be told that they were encumbering the piece with its mounting. They could have obtained fair effects with much less expense, but they preferred in all ways to give of their best. Money-making was far from being their first consideration. Another important point was that their plays were clean.

Changes in Later Period There are a few actor-managers still, and there are estimable managers who are not actors. The best of the controllers of the present-day theatres maintain a good standard of plays and production, and do not put financial results before all; but many complaints are made in England and America that there are others who are nothing but profiteers.

It is largely because o& the influence of such men that the standard of acting and production gone down and plays of degenerate varieties have been staged. Box-office results have been the only consideration. In this matter New York has been the chief offender, but many of the undesirable American plays have been taken to London, and others have been compiled there or adapted from European sources. A cheering sign of the times is that London audiences have resented on recent occasions the presentation of pieces which depended mainly on unpleasant suggestiveness concerning sex. Playgoers have been surfeited with SPC . I ? produc ti°ns and apparently many or them are longing now for entertainments that are clean and wholesome, in London there are several actresses who are best known by roles in which their dresses disappear. In the chiU of last December ‘Tunch,” playing humorously on the stage undressing craze and on other changes of fashion and custom, depicted three o' them Sates of a manor for gifts or flannel petticoats. Nothing so antiquated for these actresses and others; they continue to discard a good deal even of the airy attire of the moment. Unpleasant Plays i „ l ‘ was the sight of a “beauty” actor m blue pyjamas pursuing an alarmed a table that roused the ire and derision of the audiflrst production of Xoei d s ~ lrocco ” ln London in XotbT? er f haVe been other indications that playgoers are tiring both of actors and actresses, and of \ h hl °, r P lay in which an incident of that kind has a leading place H* e suggestive plays have meir little day, but the healthy ones To o^J nT r back t° greater success. unpl,HSii nt pieces, “The that*! ° r *r den -” when it is decided xnat a marriage shall not take place, Hi®,! ? dlnsr character tears off her wed- ™ 6 dress and throws it in the face of

the bridegroom. In “Potiphax. ! a wolnan in extremely i makes ardent love to her Hvs , ' Such plays, if we can call the® p ‘ ur; . i invite at first some interest o* . . osity. but. as a London correspond points out, many of tbera 3 while a clean, pleasant play low Sands.” written by Hden -*rjje iis now in its second play Farmer’s Wife,” another The by the same author, ran for > , public taste, after all. is s 9 VD ~I^ 9M gtfi ! With -.he loss of there is less continuity of artifh® I dition in the theatre, t-iit ” tSe ir. “producers.” who have there are capable men as well ~„t ■Must of the inferior and plays are presented by men fesfl0 r: “blown in" to Uie tneatrical pc^^ > for a year or two. merely live purposes. tiome !>*” MM »» , “blown out,” and there has general expression of regret ! departure.