FIXTURES

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1046, 9 August 1930, Page 27

FIXTURES

HIS MAJESTY’S THEATRE September.—“ Tutankhamen,” Amateur Operatic Society. Coming.—Leon Gordon: “Murder on the Second Floor,” and other plays. Edgley and Dawe Co. in “Hold Everything” and “Follow Through.” CONCERT CHAMBER August 22, 23: St. Andrew’s Society, “The Old Lady Shows Her Medals,” “A Well Remembered Voice.”

Frederick Blackman, well-known producer for J.C.W., is en route to America, to cast an eye over some New York shows. Oscar Wilde’s plays appear to be popular in London at the moment. Sir Nigel Playfair is producing “The Importance of Being Earnest,” and “Lady Windermere’s Fan” is being done by the Everyman Theatre Guild. After a run of nearly a year “The Middle Watch” was withdrawn from the Shaftesbury Theatre, London, on July 12. Basil Foster and Tom Miller’s next production will be “Leave It To Psmith,” by lan Hay and P. G. Wodehouse, to be presented about the beginning of September. A theatrical event to which London is looking forward with some degree of interest is the appearance together of Gerald du Maurier and Gladys Cooper. They are to start acting iD a play by H. M. Harwood and R. GoreBrowne which Lee Shubert has already acquired. The play’s theme is to be found in the line of Ernest Dowson’s: “I have been faithful to thee, Cynara, in my fashion,” but its name has not yet trickled through. Maurice Browne, the producer, stated recently that the losses in a week on “Badger’s Green,” the new play by R. C. Sherriff at the Prince of Wales Theatre, had been nearly. £I,OOO. The profits on Mr. Sherriff's “Journey’s End” for the first nine performances were between £1,400 and £1,500; the losses on “Badger’s Green,” for the same time, havd been between £1,200 and £1,300. Mr. Browne is prepared to lose £I,OOO a week for ten weeks if he sees the slightest chance of the play succeeding.

Allan Wilkie talks of reviving Lord Lytton’s drama of “Richelieu” in Australia. “The Curse of Rome” speech (Act 4) has not been given since the last histrionic Richelieu (Walter Bentley) appeared at the Sydney Criterion in 1893. In the cast were A. E. Greenaway (De Mauprat), Albert Lucas (Baradas), and Mrs. Molyneaux, originally a Miss Harper, from Oamaru, New Zealand, as a charming Juliet. Hilda Spong’s father, Walter, painted some excellent scenery of old Paris in the era of Louis XIII. Bontley also donned the red robes of Richelieu for (he firm’s show of “The King’s Musketeer” at Her Majesty’’s in 1899.

Clifton Alderson, who twice visited Australia, died in England recently at the age of 66. Sydney first saw him on September 19, IS9I, as Pierre in “Proof” at Her Majesty’s. Julius Knight was the juvenile lead, and was then hailed as a coming man. Laura Villier3 was the star. Alderson made a great hit during the season as the of Guisebery in Jones’s play, “The Dancing Girl.” He also appeared in the lead of “Fedora” and “Woodbarrow Farm.” His second visit was in 1594, when he played Felix in “The New Boy,” and other comedies, at the Lyceum in Pitt Street.

Nellie Bramley, after a career of almost unbroken comedy acting, has made her how as the tragedian in “The White Rat,” the new play at the Palace Theatre, Sydney. She plays as Mickey Elkins, almost a female Oliver Twist, in the power of an American bootlegger (George Cross) and at the beginning of the play she has very properly murdered Cross, and is waiting to be hanged for the crime. Act two takes the audience back eight weks to the that led to the shooting. This rather clumsy technique mars a drama which at times becomes quite thrilling. Act one, however, is very weak, and one has almost come to the conclusion that comedians cannot act serious parts when Cross makes a realistic success of his part of the villain in act two, and dies as a bootlegger should.