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Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 666, 18 May 1929, Page 24

Back to Sanity

London Theatres Under Actor-Managers SUCCESS IS IN THE AIR Ever since the war the theatre has been the happy hunting-ground of all sorts and conditions of people with money to burn, men who have plunged blindfold into a highly specialised business and imagined that they had only to plank down the cash and com, mand instantaneous success, writes Alan Parsons in the London “Daily Mail.” Productions of every conceivable kind, often fathered by mushroom managements and syndicates as shortlived as the plays themselves, have come and gone, unlamented except by the rash men who had sunk their money in them. Things are straightening themselves out at last; success is generally in the air, and this is due to the fact tnat the control of the theatre is passms out of the hands of groups and syndicates into those of the individual, and, more particularly, the actor-manager Ernest Milton, for instance, has, ! fear, little cause to bless his season at the Queen’s, but to produce a play by one of the great Continental dramatists, and to give a superb performance in it, was definitely worth while fof the sake of the theatre. I do not suppose that either Dennq Neilson-Terry or Malcolm Keen is, to put it mildly, much richer through their brief experiments as manager*, but they, too, have done their bit -- carry on th,e good work. There was a time when the actormanager was derided, but really w orst thing anyone could find to bring against him was that he took mo centre of the limelight; as he was _ most invariably the best actor in ta company, it was not really unnatar that he should do so. And bis co trolling hand, co-ordinating all ! various departments that so quit grow irresponsible without it, was valuable At one time it seemed as Gerald du Maurier would be the » I representative carrying on the g : old work of the actor-manager, Dennis Eadie’s appearances were ways fleeting and uncertain, now, just take a glance down theatre list, and see how the comi*“ has grown. n-y There is Matheson Lang at tne__ . of York’s, Leon M. Lion at •j, ham’s. Tom Walls at the AMwv Gladys Cooper at the Playhouse, Terry at the strand. Nelson Ke.the Vaudeville, Leslie Faber an gj? aid Squire at the Prince of 4 Nigel Playfair at Hammersmitn, Sir Gerald du Maurier at tne James’s. That is a fairly 1 9°“„ M list, and it does not pretend i" | comprehensive. . inz u p No wonder the theatre is looxau** lin the hands of these expert® people, rather than w “muses to a mixed handful of ; S n ° ra vea ra who have butted for a few odd. 1 i into a business of which they j ; even a rudimentary acquaintan ■ And there are other theatre . n _ - conducted not actually by ac agers, but by individuals wno q been in the theatre business lives —to name only four; -” IS ® , lied IC. B. Cochran, Basil Dean, and jj j Rea, who is that rarest ana precious asset to the theatre. man, devoted heart and soul welfara. I