STAGELAND

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 631, 6 April 1929, Page 24

STAGELAND

(By

COTHURNUS.)

FIXTURES HIS MAJESTY’S THEATRE Now Playing: ‘The Patsy,” Irene Homer. April 17: Sir Harry Lauder and company. May 15, May 23: "The Midnight Frolics,” Edgeley and Dawe. COMING “The Desert Song.” I “The Wrecker.” ST. JAMES THEATRE Now Playing George Wallace Revue Company. COMING "King of Kawau,” University Students. Pat Hanna’s “Diggers.” “Baby Cyclone" and "Good News,' Elsie Prince and Jimmy Godden. “Rio Rita,” Gladys Moncrieff. CONCERT CHAMBER April 10, 11, 12 and 13: “Bird in Hand,” Little Theatre Society. George Vallaire, who supported Josie Melville in “Kid Boots,” is playing in "Merry Merry” in London. * * * The Wanganui Little Theatre Society has chosen the three-act comedy, "And So to Bed,” a day in the life of Samuel Pepys, for its first production in April. * * * Martin Walker, who played juvenile roles with the Vanbrugh-Boucicault Company in New Zealand some years ago, has been appearing at the Everyman Theatre in London in “The Ship.” * * * After playing to capacity for ten months in London, “Bird in Hand,” by John Drinkwater, has been withdrawn to make way for a new Philpotts play. “Bird in Hand” will be presented by the Little Theatre Society on April 10. * * * Somerset Maugham, whose recent play, “The Sacred Flame,” has been hailed by some critics as the best of all his plays, has brought the total number of his plays to an even two dozen, not counting a piece done in Berlin in German in 1901. Looking at this youngish middle-aged man with the small dark moustache and firm mouth, it is difficult to realise that it is 55 years since he was born in Paris, and that “Liza of Lambeth” appeared away back in 1897.

“Bird in Hand” Drinkwater Comedy has Excellent Characters LITTLE THEATRE PRODUCTION Auckland audiences will be given an excellent picture of some of the characters of rural England when they witness tlie Little Theatre Society’s production of “Bird in Hand.” John Drinkwater, the author, has chosen an old-fashioned innkeeper as one of the central figures of the play. His daughter, Joan, is a modern product and when she falls in love with the son of a nobleman the innkeeper

—Tornquist, Photo stubbornly refuses to consider the match on the grounds of class distinction. There are several other excellent characters in the play and if the rehearsals are any criterion the performance should add to the society’s already high reputation. Mr. Kenneth Brampton is always on the alert for new blood for the society’s productions and some of his most recent “finds” will appear in “Bird in Hand.” The innkeeper will be played by Arnold Goodwin and the part of the daughter will be taken by Janet Clarkson,* who is making her first appearance with the society. Harold Haines, Ernest Blair, Gerald Roxburgh, Ina M. Allan, Morrison Steedman and Dan Flood will all play prominent parts in Drinkwater’s comedy.

When Sir Harry Lauder was in pantomime at Drury Lane, London, he noticed that the old Scottish stage doorkeeper had a had cold, so he presented him with a woollen muffler and a balaclava cap, to pull down over his ears. Noticing the old chap had discarded the balaclava, after two or three evenings, Sir Harry inquired the reason. “Wail ets like thes,” said the doorkeeper, “that cap termed oot a graiter mesforchen than the caud. because ah only lermt thes evenen that full half a duzen folk had envited me to hae a nep and ah didna hear wun o’ them." Sir Harry is to make a tour of New Zealand, supported by a new international company, commencing at Auckland on April 27. Marriage Problems New York Stage DISAPPOINTING PLAYS Since marriage is an institution about which some popular distrust still persists, no topic so thoroughly arouses the expectations of playwrights and producers who hope to interest all the people all the time. The authors of at least six plays in New York this season have either racked their brains over the issues under dispute or ransacked the theatrical lumber-room, says an English critic. Usually they ransack the lum-ber-room; and whether the playwright is acquiescing or protesting you are likely to feel that his characters reek, not of life, but of the theatre, and that what he has to say for the delectation of brooding married folk is not very much to the point. Only the other evening, in a play entitled “All the King’s Men,” Fulton Oursler set out boldly to depict the perils of second marriage. A widower with a young boy was preparing to install a second wife in his home. She was rather anxiously determined to be a good mother to the son and a good wife to her ardent husband. The situation was promising for drama, if not for sociology. But presently we were drifting off into adventitious discussions of eugenics, which, in view of the New York theatre’s devotion to pitiless realism, became a little frightening for a moment. By the time the piece was violently concluded most of us were so spattered with grease paint and sprinkled with dust from the lumber-room that the perils of second marriage appeared on the whole more welcome than stupid drama. Many Points of View All sorts of points of view obtain in theatrical marriage. Earlier in the season, in a slightly specious drama entitled “Possession,” Edgar Selwyn depressed his audiences by showing that the consolations of the woman who understands are no match for the tedious responsibilities of home and the dull security of a carping wife. With a great to-do about advanced thinking, Samson Raphaelson, in a fairly successful four-charac-ter piece entitled “Young Love,” has recently been exhibiting the perplexities of two young people who decide to commit their infidelities before marriage rather than after. They do commit them before; you suspect that they will also commit them afterwards. Ernest Pascal, in a current play that flies the scarlet gonfalon of “The Marriage Bed,” argues that sex is such a little thing in comparison with marriage that it hardly justifies so ruthless an act as divorce. After preserving the home Mr. Pascal leaves sex still unsubdued, and thus begs his most interesting question. According to Edwin Burke, in an irresponsible comedy, “This Thing Called Love,” love wrecks idyllic marriages. The gentleman in the case hires a wife merely to administer his home. They agree to pursue their personal affairs unmolested. As you may have guessed already, they soon fell in love with each other, dismiss their private consolers, and let the final curtain drop on lawful raptures. Of course, now that love has flown in at the window their idyllic marriage must logically fly out, but Mr. Burke, being a story-teller, does not pursue his thesis too far. A Good Play Well Acted

As it happens, the only exhilarating play on marriage , “Gypsy,” is more properly a study of the chief character, whose vagrant temperament the title describes. After having been unfaithful to her husband once, Gypsy finds herself being unfaithful again; and presently unusual circumstances convince her that she is really a pernicious little person. It is a shock to discover it. Hating the sort of person she knows herself to be, she kills herself in the last act. Such a bare description does scant justice to this engaging drama by Maxwell Anderson, who writes about young New Yorkers with more forthright honesty and radiant charm than anyone else. As in an earlier comedy, “Saturday’s Children,” he sets his characters to talking frankly about the difficulties of marriage under the social and economic conditions now existing. And since these aspiring young people are the salt of the .earth, fair-minded, independent, good-humoured “Gypsy” becomes one of the most attractive plays in several months. Such plays are uncommonly well acted here by young people to whom the impulses of modern character are not strange. No exception to the rule, “Gypsy” gleams through a perfomance as clean and true as the play. Although it leaves the problem of marriage still in the hands of those who practise it, it lures the drama out of the theatre into the clear light of day. And, since Mr. Anderson is no play-joiner, but an artist, it interprets problems in terms of character. You may conclude, like one of Wycherley’s characters, that “women but serve to keep a man from better company.” Meanwhile, you have seen a rare and shining play.

(“The Patsy” has won many friends in Auckland and a packed theatre has welcomed the play every evening since it began its season here. Plays of this sentimental type, written to a sure formula, are always a success. The play is interpreted by an admirable cast with Irene Homer in the lead. Eileen Sparks gives an Eileen Sparks excellent picture as the modern “ugly sister.” She was here formerly with Guy Bates Post and Maurice Moscovitch. The committee of the Canterbury Repertory Theatre Society has chosen Karel Capek’s play, “R.TJ.K.” for its next production. Professor James Shelley will produce this play in June, and will also, at an early date, deliver a public lecture on some aspects of dramatic production.

“Charivaria," which is described as aa English Chauve Souris, is the legitimate successor to the Co-Optimists in London. The company includes: Dorothy Dickson, Melville Gideon. Billy Bennett, Joan Clarkson,, Wyn Richmond, Claude Hulbert and Reg. Palmer. The annual Shakespeare Festival at Stratford-upon-Avon will this year begin on April 15, and continue for five weeks. For the birthday play on Tuesday, April 23, the governors have chosen “Much Ado About Nothing.” The other plays selected are “King Richard the Second,” “The Taming of the Shrew,” “Hamlet,” “Twelfth Night,” “The Merchant of Venice," “Macbeth” and Sheridan's comedy, “The School for Scandal ”