“THIS IS A JAZZ AGE,” SAYS MOSCOVITCH.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18055, 15 January 1927, Page 9

“THIS IS A JAZZ AGE,” SAYS MOSCOVITCH.

ENGLISH PEOPLE HAVE LOST TASTE FOR DRAMA. This is a jazz age -people are mad on the Charleston, mad on light things, and this is reflected in the European Theatre to-day. These words were in the reply to a question concerning the state of the English theatre which an interviewer asked the Russian actor Maurice Mosoovitch this afternoon Moscovitch, who was in Christchurch about eighteen months ago, will be remembered for his fine acting in an exacting series of plays. His Shylock interpretation during that season was an artistic triumph. Returning to England after a further season in Australia, Moscovitch put on a play in London, but its run was interrupted by the strike, and after that it was difficult to get another start “ England at that time was terrible,” he said. “ There was nothing to do in the country so all the people who could do so went away.” Moscovitch found that English audiences just now did not desire serious plays. They went to the theatre for entertainment alone, and in consequence the light element predominated. It was the same elsewhere in Europe, and even in Germany, where fine artistic performances used to be put on in the theatres, there was the same tendency. “ I am not pro-German," he said, “ but one has to admire the way in which the Germans are trying to get themselves to their feet. They are working from daylight till dark. Work is not done by the clock, and there is no talk of trade unions, and forty-four hour weeks.” • Moscovitch, who was in Italy a few months ago, thinks that Mussolini is doing a great deal of good for the country. A few years ago it was impossible to travel in the country without having luggage stolen, but now. under the dictatorship, things are different. There is a rigid discipline, and the administration is much severer than that of Germany before the war. Even the music halls are closed because Mussolini believes that they undermine the morale of his people. Under his contract Moscovitch will be in Australia for about a year, and then he hopes to travel New Zealand for the last time with “ The Music Master,” a thirty-year-old American play. “ After that, I shall go home, and stay there whenc my ties are,” he said. “I do not like being so many thousands of miles away.”