STAGELAND

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 544, 22 December 1928, Page 22

STAGELAND

FIXTURES HIS MAJESTY’S THEATRE Now Playing. “The Midnight Frolics,” Edgeley and Dawe, Jan. 14, Jan. 29. —Dion Boucicault and Irene Vanbrugh. COMING “The Desert Song.” “The Patsy.” “Princess Charming." “Castles In the Air.” ST. JAMES THEATRE Now Playing. George Wallace Revue Co. COMING “Baby Cyclone” and “Good News," Elsie Prince and Jimmy Godden. “The Mystery Bride,” Betty Ross Clarke and Basil Radford. “Rio Rita,.” Gladys MoncriefC. Mrs. Patrick Campbell recently appeared in “John Gabriel Borkman,” at the “Q” Theatre, London. Irene Vanbrugh is jotting down notes for a book of reminiscences which will be compiled when she returns to England. * * * Maurice Chevalier, considered the most popular star in the European theatre, has deserted Paris for Hollywood, where he will go into the “talkie” films. London stars ai‘e flocking to New York. Constance Collier is playing a return season, Fay Compton is playing in “Olympia,” and Beatrice Lillie, Noel Coward and a host of others are in revue. ROBERT GEODES SCORES BIG SUCCESS IN CHICAGO

Splendid news comes from America of Robert Geddes, the young Aucklander who is slowly hut surely climbing to the top of the theatrical tree. Recently he left London for the States, ichere he was engaged by Oscar Hammerstein to play in “Golden Dawn' for a season in Chicago. This very elaborate musical production cost £32,000 before the curtain rose on the first night, but its success is assured. In April Mr. Geddes expects to appear in Hew Yorfc in a new Guy Bolton production. Idle rumour has stated that he was engaged at a salary of 500 dollars a week, but this is quite wrong. His salary is very much above that figure. Mr. Geddes is a son of Mrs. '. rr McKail, of Wynyard Street, Auckland.

Maud Allen is coming out of her long retirement to dance again in January at a Sunday afternoon concert at the Albert Hall, London. She will dance to illustrate the music of Tschaikowsky’s Sixth Symphony, which takes relatively 55 minutes to play. Afterwards she will revive some of her old dances that stirred London like a baby earthquake in a tube station 20 years ago. Then she was accused of wearing costumes remarkable for their invisibility, but nowadays the famous Maud Allen draperies would be considered positively stuffy.

(By COTMOKNUS.J Nellie Stewart Is flirting with the idea ot going to England to lift her melodious voice in the new “Talkies.” Some of her friends have almost persauded her that this sort of work would appeal to her, but some of us are inclined to think that if the screen announced “Miss Nellie Stewart will be the voice for the heroine in this picture,” the audience would rise in a body and cry: "Let's see her!” ALLAN WILKIE TO TOUR DOMINION AGAIN

Another tour of New Zealand by Allan Willcie and his Shakespearean Company will begin in the New Year. Mr. Willcie, with Miss HunterWatts and the members of his company, will arrive at Wellington on January 14 from Melbourne by the Manuka, and will spend a holiday prior to opening at the Grand Opera House, Wellington, on January 2(5. Mr. Wilkie will present the following plays during this tour ; —“ Coriolanus“The Taming of the Shrew,” “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” “Henry V.” “Othello” “King Lear,” “All’s Well That Ends Well,” “Much Ado About Nothing,” and several others which were staged on his last visit.

Who discovered Clarice Hardwicke? For some years now this Australian girl has been a distinguished performer in London productions. The answer is: Beaumont Smith. With him she had a few-lines part in “The Glad Eye”; and a little later —under his management—she more than justified the promise he discerned in her, from the first, by scoring a distinct success as the leading-woman in the Rex Beach drama, “The Barrier.”

Dry Drama

Dion Boucicault Talks of Modern Playwrights NOTHING IN AUSTRALIA Why is the quality of the drama declining? Probably more plays are being written at present than at any other time in the history of the theatre, but Dion Boucicault is emphatic that extremely few of this mass of plays are really good, or would justify a producer in taking the risk of trying them on the stage. During his season in Australia at least three or four plays written by Australians have been submitted to him each week, but he has found most of them impossible, and only one that Impressed him.

Mr. Boucicault has no definite theory to account for the poor slip-shod kind of plays that most aspiring dramatists are turning out. He believes, however, that the war has had an influence on dramatic production. This arose from the fact that for four years it diverted such men as Sir James Barrie, Sir Arthur Pinero and Mr. Somerset Maugham, from their writing of plays, to literary work designed to stimulate the people during the long conflict. At the close of the war they did not return to the writing of plays. “YOUNGSTERS NOT BRILLIANT” “Barrie is now about 70 years of age, or near it,” said Mr. Boucicault. “One cannot expect the spring of inspiration to go on for ever.” “The younger school,” he went on with a shrug of the shoulders. “They are not rising to the occasion with really serious dramatic work. Noel Coward has stood out in the younger London school, but now he has turned to writing revues and libretto for musical productions. One of his plays, ‘The Vortex,’ is really fine. Then there is O’Casey, W’hose ‘Juno and the Paycock’ is an excellent piece of work. Then, of course, Lonsdale writes a pleasant, witty play. But in Paris they are doing nothing of outstanding value. One never hears of a play there now that one would rush across from London to see, as in former years. In Germany It Is the same—nothing really serious and of striking merit is coming from there.” NONE IN AUSTRALIA “In Australia you have no real dramatists,” said Mr. Boucicault. “Men and women seem to set down to write perhaps a literary play and are content so long as they have got it on to paper. They seem to overlook the fact that their work has to be cast effectively, and to hold an audience. They show little idea of amplification of points or of construction.” Mr. Boucicault said that the only Australian play he had read that would have been suitable for the stage was one b£ Judge Bee by. ~ .

Ashley Dukes Writes New Play Some of those qualities of graceful writing and dramatic effect which made a success of Ashley Dukes’s “The Man with a Load of Mischief,” are contained in the same author’s new play, “The Fountain Head,” produced at the Arts Theatre Club, London, recently. This is a costume play, with the scene that of a courtyard in an Italian city. The fountain head, which gives the play Its name, is a place from which those hidden within are able to overhear the secrets of their friends—and enemies. It serves, in fact, the same purpose that hundreds of screens and cupboards have served in so many dramas and farces. But Mr. Dukes, unlike the mere manufacturers of machine-made plays, uses an ancient device of stage craft artistically, even poetically. That is the difference.

The plot relates the fortunes of an unscrupulous young man who has married a beautiful girl for her dowry. He Is a libertine, he makes his home a place for card-sharping, he is a thorough scoundrel in every way. But true love comes to purify him of all his vices with almost uncanny suddenness.