STACELAND

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 412, 21 July 1928, Page 22

STACELAND

FIXTURES

HIS MAJESTY’S THEATRE July 25-August 7.—“ A Cuckoo in the Nest,” “Rookery Nook,” and “Thark.” August B.—“ The Trial of Mary Dugan” (Leon Gordon). September.—Dion Boucicault and Irene Vanbrugh. COMING J.C.W. Celebrity Vaudeville. “The Girl Friend." “Princess Charming." “Castles in the Air.” ST. JAMES THEATRE Now playing. —“ Sunny” and July 23, “Mercenary Mary” (Elsie Prince). August 14.—Grand Opera Co. CONCERT CHAMBER July 25. —“Bunty Pulls the Strings," St. Andrew's Society. August 2 and 3.—“ The Charm School,” St. Cuthbert Old Girls’ Association. "Madame Pompadour,” and “The Student Prince,” will open the Theatre Royal in Christchurch, in August. The J.C.W. house there has been altered and renovated and is now the most attractive theatre in the Southern city. Distil the entire performances of many imported actresses —English and American —and you would not get the art expressed by Margaret Bannerman in a single line is the tribute paid to this charming actress by an Australian critic. The playwrights of America have formed themselves into a trade union under the euphemistic title —“The Dramatists’ Guild.” Members are pledged not to dispose of their works except on certain minimum terms. Enforcement of this condition is assured by an agreement that managers have already consented to sign.

Helene Simon, -who plays leading roles in “Rookery Nook” and “Cuckoo in the Nest,” confesses that she had no wild desire to go on the stage, was never infatuated with any beauty actor, and saw no particular glamour in the life behind the footlights. “I wanted to travel,” she explained, “and chose the stage as a method by which a woman of no special means could see the world.”

(By COTHURNUS) The play, “Six Characters in Search of an Author,” by the Italian, Pirandello, has long been regarded as a sort of “test case” wherever there has been discussion of the censorship in England. “Six Characters in Search of an Author” is popularly regarded as Pirandello’s best and most characteristic play. Pirandello is a dramatist of sufficient eminence to have a troupe and a theatre of his own in Rome, and he enjoys so great a vctgue on the Continent that at one time, a year or two ago, three plays of his were running simultaneously in Paris at three different theatres. “Six Characters in Search of an Author” has been played in public for several months’ run at a New York Theatre. The play was done for two performances several years ago by the London Stage So-ciety-one of their best achievements —but since then has remained under the censor’s ban. Recently it was revived again, with Mr. H. K. Ayliff as producer, by the Arts Theatre Club, at their private theatre. It has now been passed by the censor, and will be played for a season at the Globe.

“Rio Rita” is now' playing its eleventh week in Sydney. The Fullers predict that it will run for at least 20 w*eeks.

Jack Musgrove (Tivoli. Sydney), remarked that when an English comedian fails in America all he has to do is to become the stage Johnny—monocle, spats and moustache, and indulge in the haw-haw fatuities peculiar to that creation. Roars of laughter are assured. “The stage Englishman in America,” adds Mr. Musgrove, “is what the stage Hebrew is everywhere.”

The London theatrical magnate, C. B. Cochran, was secretary to Richard Mansfield during one of Henry Irving’s visits to America. He relates that in New York he heard Mansfield and Irving discussing the critics. “The critics/* declared Irving, with a smile, “will be all right. I’ve bought a play from each of them.” “But,” responded Mansfield, “what are you going to do when they want you to produce them?**