BY MASQUE.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XLIX, Issue 12646, 6 November 1905, Page 7

BY MASQUE.

■Mr T. W. Ferry, manager of the' Municipal Opera House, received the following wire \from Bert Royle westerday afternoon: —Take out attraction 23rd November. Attraction coming in December. " Oliver Twist," with Mr Beerbohm Tree as Fagin, is the autumn attraction at His Majesty's. The play is a lurid melodrama, but Mr Tree gives a memorjable study of the rascally old Jew. Instructions have been sent to his London agent by Mr J. C. Williamson to send out all the costume designs, scene plots, etc., used in the original production of "Utopia Limited." This will necessitate same little delay before the Gilbert and Sullivan Company stage it in Australia. Mr William Anderson has engaged Czerny, an illusionist, for a tour of New Zealand and Australia, commencing at Wellington on Boxing Night. Mr Le Devis, who was here with the Hawtrey Compay, is running vaudeville entertainments in Perth. Tyrone Power and Edirtih Crane had just finished playing in " Ingomar " at Denver when the American mail left.

The plot of " iMerely (Mary Ann," which will be staged for the first time in Australia 'by Miss Tittell Brune at Her Majesty's, Sydney, promises abundant scope both for Miss Brune herself and the company which supports her. A young composer struggling for his living is absolutely worshipped by a poor little lodging-house slavey, who would willingly let him trample on her if he so wished. A fortune is left her by some forgotten relations, and she goes away to become a great lady, after a pathetic farewell with Lancelot, whose pride will not let him speak the love he discovers he has for her. Afterwards, of course, they meet again, and all ends happily. Speaking of plagiarism, says a writer in the " Australasian," 'brings to the memory a curious coincidence which anyone will recognise who has heard Liza Lehmann's song cycle, " TUie Daisy Chain," and " The Oingalee." The melody of the first two 'bare in the quartet, " Little Indian,'etc." is almost identical with the first two bar 6in the refrain, " It's the Ladies, the Little Ladies." Themelody is a singularly fresh and pleasing one, and that makes identification all the easier.

Mr Athol Forde, who toured New Zealand with Mr George Musgrove's Shakespearian Company, and Mr J. C. Williamson's " 'Marriage of Kitty " Company, has since his return to London been interviewed by tihe " Era." In the course of the interview he expressed the opinion that Melbourne is a little more artistic than Sydney* "Dr Wake's Fatdent," the play newlyacquired by Meters Brough and Fleming, was successfully produced at the London Adedphi Theatre on September 6tJh. Both the authors acted in the new play. <Mr Gayer Msickay appeared as Duff, a good-natured noodle, who used the word " absolutely " in every other sentence, whilst. the other author, 'Robert Ord/ J proved to be Miss Edith. Ostlere, who played an insignificant part. The love-story shows how Dr Wake, whilst at the farm-hoUse of hia rustic parents, renders service to a young lady who as brought in unconscious from a fall from her horse. The two become mutually, attracted, lose trace of each other' for a time, and meet again fby chance in Dr Wake's consulting room in Harley Street, London. The affair is blocked by the fact that she, the Lady Gerania Wyn-Cherteret, is the daughter of a duke, hut all comes right in the end. The whole forms a bright and amusing comedy. A 'bicycle►■ ■rider,1'" named Volo, pwith ■Barnum's Circus, while at Helena (U.S.), fell when doing "-The Ride for Life," and - his injuries were^'all but fatal. Volo's correct name is Tom Butler, and his wife loops the loop in an automobile. On the night of the,.accident, Mrs Butler followed witihl Ber dangerous turn immediately after, the fall of her husband, which, says a contemporary, was either' very plucky of the lady, or an exhibition of callousness that calls for strong comment. Tod Slo-an, the celebrated American jockey, recently refused an offer of £300 a week to appear in vaudeville in America. Sloan stated he could get £500 a week in England to produce a sketch that he owns, written round his own career.

West's Pictures and the Brescians were as interesting as ever last evening, when they reappeared tat tlhe Opera House. They will make their final appearance this evening.