Getting ‘“The Bird”

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 358, 19 May 1928, Page 22

Getting ‘“The Bird”

How Actors have Taken Audiences ’Disapproval NOEL COWARD’S FAILURES ARE BLESSINGS IN DISGUISE We English are suspicious only of success. Failure in any form arouses our enthusiasm. What a fuss has been made because the Keller Sisters and Brother Lynch were laughed off the Coliseum stage some nights ago, writes a London critic. Tearful reporters record the trio’s statement that "Mother and Dad were in front” on the awful occasion, and were very depressed about it all. Sir Oswald Stoll informs me that the decision of these Americans to try again constitutes an exhibition of grit unequalled in his 40 years’ experience of music-halls. “The Bird,” as stage folk call this articulate disapproval of audiences, can be a blessing in disguise. 1 remember when Arthur Bourchier was booed by the gallery on the first night of “The Trump Card” some years ago. Instead of bowing to the storm, Bourchier stuck an advertisement in all the personal columns, asking the objectors wliat annoyed them. Fiftyseven replies complained of the re-cently-raised gallery prices. Bourchier instantly ordered a reduction to a shilling a seat. After that the “gods,” feeling heartily ashamed of themselves, loved him more than ever. Dramatist’s Pet Noel Coward may be said to have tamed “The Bird” so thoroughly that it eats out of his hand.

The woman who rose in a box at the end of the second act of “Fallen Angels” and said: “As a member of the British public, I protest,” actually did the box-office a lot of good. Booing at the end of “Home Chat” won sympathy for Coward. The cries of “Rubbish!” after “Sirocco” only determined the Coward fans to be doubly enthusiastic when his big revue, written for Mr. Cochran, came to London. If I may mix metaphors, The Bird's bark is worse than its bite. But there are other kinds of intervention from the audience which are not so lightly to be faced. Nobody quite knew what to do when, while the American producer of the “Folies Bergere” bowed to the Palladium audience a few years ago, a Frenchman rose in the circle and cried out: “1 am the producer; my ideas have all been stolen.” It was the orchestra conductor who saved the situation. What might have become a dispute between representatives of two foreign peoples was cut short by the British National Anthem, played with even more fervour than usual. Man With a Kink There is a man in London of whom every stage manager is afraid. Some queer mental kink causes him to identify himself with the characters in the play, and he is liable, from a seat in the auditorium, to interrupt any moment. For a long time nothing has been heard of him. His last appearance was during the run of “The Cradle Song.” I was asked at the time to say nothing about it, and respected the management’s mistaken notion that the story might harm the run of the play. Temporarily, at least, this interrupter proved a great embarrassment. He began by writing long and incoherent letter", to an actress in the company, whose part in the play was that of an affianced girl living in the care of some nuns. The writer declared that he was the fiance of whom she so frequently spoke. Apparently he attended the play night after night. Du Maurier’s Will-power As to taking instant command of a rowdy audience, there is only one actor I know who can do it effectively —Sir Gerald du Maurier. On the first night rof “5.0.5.” after the final curtain had fallen, the applause was interrupted by pursts of laughter and shouting in the gallery, just as Du Maurier was beginning a speech. It was sheer exuberance, yet it might have spoiled the evening. JJu Maurier simply waited m silence, looking up at the gallery. That needed pluck, for once rowdiness starts there is little chance of stopping it. For three or four minutes the actor stood silent, just as he had done on a similar occasion after the production of “Not In Our Stars.” With dramatic suddenness quietness came, espectful and complete.