AMUSEMENTS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2764, 19 March 1910, Page 4 (Supplement)

AMUSEMENTS.

HIS MAJESTY’S. LOCAL fTxTURES. Pathe Pictures—Nightly. March. 31.—Black Family. April 21, 22. Peter Pan Co. “A good voice has made many a laid actor,” Joseph Jefferson used to say. “For what does an actor with a good voice do to make himself a good actor? Nothing. He. comes out on to the stage and listens to himself making pretty sounds, and,” adds Mr. Jefferson, “nobody else does.”

In an article in “Cassel’s Saturday Journal” Miss Ada Reeve says: —“I was the first girl to turn a ‘Catherine wheel’ on the- music hall stage. In my waif and strect-arab parts at the Pavilion. Mile End, I often turned ‘wheels,’ ami one day it struck me that it might be a good idea to introduce them on the ‘halls.’ Greatly daring, I put the idea into execution at the Cambridge Music Hall, and it met with instant success. Indeed, ever afterwards the audience used to greet me with shouts of ‘Over, Ada!’ This wag pleasing; but it was not so pleasant when, one night as I was going over, the padlock of a brace, let I was wearing got under my hand and buried itself in the flesh. The pain was most appalling, and when my ‘turn’ was over I had to have the wretched thing cut out; but I had been taught to keep a smiling face in- all circumstances, and the audience suspected nothing.”

Oswald' Stoll’s engagement of Sarah Bernhardt to appear in the- London Coliseum for two months in the autumn (for £8000) is the final triumph of the music hall’s remarkable advance. No actor or actress feels it undignified to perform on the music-hall stage now. For instance, Mine. Bernhardt explains to a Paris correspondent that she- consented to the proposal upon learning that Ellen Terry and Marie Tempest had also agreed to appear in the Colliseum. Recently Cyril Maude was appearing in the Colliseum, Rutland Barrington in the Pavilion, and Arthur Bon chier and Miss Violet Vanburgh in the Palace in London. The audience has developed no less than the stage. Ultra-respectable people, who would never have dreamed -of the music hall a few years ago visit it quite commonly now.

Here is something from the London “Era,” January 29th, about two New Zealand favorites: —“Miss May Beattie, who is appearing in the ‘Dick ’Whittington’ pantomime at the Britannia, is a comely and sweet-voiced principal boy, and plays the part with abundant spirit ami ox(;oiI' i nt humor, and her success is never in doubt. That immensely popular song, ’Somewhere’ finds in her an interpreter of considerable culture, and the melodious phrases ring throughout the big auditorium, not only as a solo, but as one big chorus, in which man, woman, and child join. Another great vocal success is ‘I Used to Sigh for the Silvery Moon.’ The comic scenes ore plentiful, and Mr. Edward Lauri is very prominent in the fooling. A capital actor, an excellent dancer and a resourceful comedian. Mr. Lauri does immense service in the interests of the fun. Ho has excellent songs in ‘Beside the Sea,’ (which the gods and pit catch up with complete unanimity) and ‘Charlie Brown.’ ”

Probably no subject is more persistently talked about in certain circles than the possible matrimonial intentions of Miss Amy Castles (says the Sydney “Referee”). Various inquisitive, persons who are in the dark as to the singer’s ambitions, have discussed the matter with unwearying energy, and have already circulated the statement that she is already engaged. Some, indeed, have even suggested that, the singer is already married, and to a gentleman so variously described that, lie might be anything from a shopkeeper to a Cabinet Minister. Needless to say, all these, rumors, prophecies, and statements are .entirely erroneous. At present the lyric soprano is working 'hard in the rehearsals for “Madame Butterfly.” Miss Castles •has no time- for romance while she is preparing for 3icr first appearance in opera.

“Bulletin” pars:—There has been a revival in “dear old mother.” At one. time the variety halls boomed the old girl, and the programme without the “motto” singer who wailed “Take the Mortgage off my Mother’s Grave,” or “Save My Mother’s Picture From t.ie Bailiff,” was a fraud and a great blank. After a long run m the halls, however, ma was passed out with a Hying curse, and since, then she has been short of a job. Now she has re-appear ed in the' “starring” of the pugs. Bob Fitzsimmons earned the kind word and the silent tear of admiration when in Sydney, and more reccntlv in M.L., because “he was good to his mother, and Jack Johnson has been making a big hit along the &amo lines. “Sobriety, application, and, again sobriety, says the huge coon in a lecture to the colored men’s branch of the New York Y.M.C.A., recently, “are cardinal requisites for success in life, with devotion to one’s Aged Mother a close fourth.” So it may bo reasonable inferred' that the aged mother is coming into fashion again. . • • Gan e who as to give a conceit a Colombo, by the way, is due an Melbourne on April 4, and wall pause toi about a fortnight before she appears at the Town Hall. She will “dress” hei parts, like Arral of yore, and giv© exoerjpts. from Rusticana, Trovatoie, / u “Hamlet,” etc. Her vocal support*. 1 (who will also sing in costume) is one Galileo Gasparri, an Italian tenor; and Jacques Pintel, a- French pianist, will preside at the incidental box of music.

TRAVELLING SHOWMEN IN ENGLAND.

Tiic people of show-land celebrated in January, while making ready i-s their u.vmmer season “on the roau, the 21st. anniversary or thorn guild. Of these war.dernig iolk <0 ; (.00 ex to-day in England. “Open-hearted, cheerful Bohemians they aro. lair-deal-inp‘ fair-thinking, al! with tne love ot the’life on the road in their heart and blood!” This was how the travelling show people were described by one who has studied them for more than A> years*—Mr. E. H. Pedgrift, manager of the “Era” newspaper. Ho was one of tile founders of the guild, known in its early days .as the Vandwellers’ Society. With the first promise . of spring, brassworlc being polished and showfronts newly painted, these people or •the road will start cheerfully forth up-

on their wanderings, disdaining the sleeping places of ordinary foLc, and living happily awheel until the full da t s of October send them into winter quai“This >is the life they love-—the changing life of the road/’ said Mr. Pedgrift. “It is their habits, not their instincts, which have changed. In the old days the showman lived comfortably in. a cram lied, dingy sleeping waggon. Now his living saloon rivals, in its artfully designed comforts, tllie luxurj e* first-class Pullman car.” Although the showmen are still Om the same restless family, the fair of the old day® was quite unlike the fair oi to. day, .pointed out Mr. Pedgriit. I hen, in the flickering flare or oil lamps, acrobats twisted about on carpets spread upon the ground, there were 'iowdy ■boxing booths, and dreadful freaks and monstrosities in crudely painted booths. Now, with the fair-ground bright as day 'in the light of electric arc lamps, for which the current is made by the showmen’s o\\lii elaborate machinery, are fine portable theatres, where cinematograph pictures arc shown, and a wealth of costly apparatus for providing new sensations helter-skelters, gliding -gondolas, galloping wooden horses.

At Keeney’s Third Avenue last 'Sunday night (reports a New York paper or January 22), Special Policeman \\illiani Cashin was stabbed in the abdomen and seriously wounded by one or a party of several Italians he was trying to elect from the theatre. Although suffering greatly from pain and weakened iby loss of blood, Gasilin managed to follow the Italians, overtaking one in Third Avenue, and caused his arrest. The Italians made a rush, during the performance, 'to occupy seats, in c he of the boxes. When Gasilin attempted to put them out one stabbed him. A panic was averted. Before the special policeman had subdued the Italian he managed to use his club with such effect that the two men were taken to Bellevue in the same ambulance. Mine. Sarah Bernhardt is a victim of tho autocratic methods of the Paris telephone administration. Her telephone has been removed because she remonstrated too freely with an uncivil operator. The telephone service in Paris is admittedly the worst ru Europe, and service is only obtained after exasperating delays. Describing the incident, lime. Bernhardt said:—“l think I managed to be pretty rude, hut I was not nearly so rude as I could •have been. I feci like a woman with one arm. I used the telephone a hundred times a day, and because I lost my temper I have lost the principal convenience of my life.”

Mr. Harold Ashton, of the inanaerial staff of Air. J. C. Williamson, is to have charge of the “Peter Pan” Company, which is to commence a tour of New Zealand in Wellington on Easter Saturday (March 26).