THE CHANGING THEATRE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 826, 21 November 1929, Page 16

THE CHANGING THEATRE

ALL-VAUDEVILLE DEAD IN U.S.A. “FLESH AND BLOOD” DEMAND Special to THE SUN WELLINGTON, Today. All-vaudeville has disappeared in America. The old-time two-a-day and three-a-day show is quite dead. This information comes from Mr. Harry Muller, who for the past ten years has represented, the J. C. WiJ liamson firm in California. Pie is now : in Wellington and it is Delieved that ; he will succeed the late Mr. Bert Royle i as New Zealand manager for the firm j Although the pictures have killed : vaudeville, says Mr. Muller, the curij ous thing is that the talkies are now j providing a great deal of work for ; vaudeville artists. There is a demand for “liesh and j blood” talent and throughout the States a certain number of turns are J placed on the programme. This pra.eI tico is being followed by the R.K.O. i Corporation, which has acquired the • Orpheum and Keith circuits through- } out the States for pictures. Speaking i at the Fox £1,000,000 theatre in San i Francisco recently, Mr. Hiram Brown said out of every hundred theatres they could give them big-time artists in but seven, but at that particular theatre they would expect the best in talkies and vaudeville. That was what had come about in America, and he felt sure it was bound to obtain in Australia, said Mr. Muller. Somehow or otiier the public wanted some show of the human ele- | ment, and that vaudeville talent-was j being utilised in the form of special I presentations which sometimes had a i bearing on the theme of the picture to follow, or was just an artistic presenj tation on its own. “Mind you,” said Mr. Muller, “I don’t j think the talkies will ever kill the . legitimate stage play well done. There I was striking proof of if recentlv in San PTancisco when Ethel Barrymore j ca-nie with a purely religious, play en- | titled ‘The Kingdom of God,’ by SiI erra, a creation with no continuity of i plot, no hero, no villain, but just a j beautiful idea from the Spanish, and I the people thronged the theatre afternoon and evening. The receipts ranged up to £0,400 a week, which shows that the talkies have not got it all their own way yet. “I think the logical outcome will be fewer but better stage productions. As long as you give the public the uoocls it will patronise them. The acting of Miss Barrymore and her company took mo right back to the palmy clays of Brough and Boucicault in New Zealand. when quality was everything, and that it is still in demand is shown by the success all over the States of the Ethel Barrymore company."