AMUSEMENTS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2769, 26 March 1910, Page 4 (Supplement)

AMUSEMENTS.

HIS MAJESTY’S. LOCAL FIXTURES. Pathe Pictures—Nightly. March 31. —Black Family. April 21, 22. Peter Pan Co. Miss Alice Pollard a little while ago received an offer from an Australian theatrical entrepreneur to play leading roles in Australia, hut George Edwardcs would not release her from her engagement". The result has been that she has been east for one of the leading parts in- “The- Green Butterfly,” one of Edwardes’ forthcoming productions in London.

As tlie great singer, Madame Mazarin fell unconscious at the conclusion of “Eloktra” in New York. 4500 persons in the audience, men and women, rose up and remained standing, while awaiting for tidings, and did not depart until it became 'known that the singer was unable to appear unon the stage again that- evening. When Madame Maza, rin first appeared before tlie footlights at the end of the opera she seemed to be very much fatigued, but was all smiles. She was recalled again and again, and then appeared accompanied by the leading members of the cast. M. do la Fuente, the musical conductor, jumped on to the stage and embraced her, while men and' women in the audience clapped their gloves into ribbons.

Eleonora Duse, the great Italian tragedienne, was bora in a waggon on the- outskirts of Venice, being the child of itinerant players, who toured the country in a rough kind of caravan. She started in her profession by playing child parts in the primitive, dramas and farces included in her parents’ repertoire. Even at the. age of twenty, when playing in provincial theatres, she gave no indication of the genius which, four years later, placed her in the forefront of the world’s dramatic actresses. She played the leading roles in the Dumas’ repertoire, “Magda,” “The Second Mrs. Tanqueray,” “Cavalleria Rustieana” (the drama), and in many of the plav<-. of Gabrielle d’Annunzip, with whom she was in partnership for some time.

New Zealand is to he well catered for with theatrical shows this year. “Peter Pan” will be here at Easter, and in May Williamson’s Grand Opera Company will come across, followed later by the pantomime “Aladdin.” Nellie Stewart will pay another visit, with a new company and repertory, including the great American success “What Every Woman Knows. ’ It is also said that the Williamson firm will send through the Dominion- an American comedy company. Clarke and Meynell will he represented by George Willoughby’s “The. Nights of the Party” companv. and Air. Harrv Roberts with Mathoson Lang’s success “Pete.” It is also on the cards that this firm’s new opera company will be seen in “The Arcadians.”

Sir Herbert Tree (says “Cassell’s”) was once i>revailcd upon in his kindness of heart to engage a- servant gir] out of the workhouse. She was desperately untid— and. after various attempts to teach her method, Lady Tree told her husband that it was no use, the girl must really go. “Oh. try her a little longer,” urged Sir Herbert. And she was granted a respite. However, it was all in vain, and to Sir Herbert- Tree, as he had engaged the girl, fell the task of getting rid of her. He told her that if she did not mend her ways she must return to the workhouse. “Oh, no, I shan’t-,” she snapped out, rudely. “I’ll get another situation. “But I can’t give you a character,”- returned the actor, and you trill find it very difficult to get another situation without a character.” “Perhaps!” was the retort. “At all events if the worst comes to the worst, I can always go on the stage.” OSCAII ASCHE’S SHYLOCK.

The new SliyloCk (says the “Sydney .’Morning Herald” in its notice of the Asehe-Brayton production of “Tli e Mer. chant of Venice,” not- only ceases to be either venerable, hawloeyecl, or intellectual, but lie no longer makes his first entrance '.vith Bassamo, pausing to lean on his stick in rapt abstraction at the opening words ‘’three thousand ducats—well.” It is all different, inconceivably different. All the young gallants leave the “streets of Venice” by the old stone bridge-on the left except Antonio and Bassanio, and, as these two linger, the shutters of the ancient dwelling that faces this beautiful .scene fly open, and there sits Shylcck, in shabby, sordid garb, on the cushioned recess of the low windowsill, in Orientapifasliion, cross-legged, con r liing his tablets and liis ledger on his knee , a red-haired, stout colossus with black eyebrows, gleaming white teeth, and a sulky smile suggesting a strong and savage animalism. Could any figure less resemble the- idea of Shylock which older playgoers have learned to admire in Irving, Bellow, Dampier. and many others? Crowds will throng to the theatre to note, approve, or disagree with the strong individuality which Oscar Aschc brings to bear upon his Shylock. wherein he starts by giving a long speech, “You call me. misbeliever, cut-throat dog, and spit upon my Jewish gaberdine,” not with the rage of rhetorical emphasis, but in a series of cutting conversational sarcasms. Wonderfully clever, natural, and to the point were all the artist’s changes on these lines. There was a splendid outburst in the scene after the loss of his daughter with the old Tubal, and tine malignancy before the Court, as lie sharpened the knife and dallied with the' scales, moved l the house, though the scene, as a whole, inevitable lost by the l absence of sympathy with the sturdy usurer, who had fattened on his gains only to over-reach himself at last. The sense of tragic grandeur, the suggestion of mental elevation, had been necessarily sacrificed, and with them the pathos of the situation. A STEVENSON PLAY. MISS TITTELL BRUNE’S NEW PART LONDON, Feb. 4. From an artistic point of view “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”—Die dramatisation bv Comyns Carr of Robert Louis Stevenson’s story—is not an unqualified success, but (regarded as a good oldfashioned blood-curdling melodrama it is, and shows signs of drawing enthusiastic audiences intent on being strung up to the highest pitch of terrifying excitement (says the correspondent of the “New Zealand Times”). H. IL. Irving, as Jekyll and Hyde, is the pivot on which all the main interest turns, and it is obvious that the other characters are only side-lights, created

to ma'ko more effective the extraordinary deal personality of the hero. The feminine characters-—Laura, the beautiful blind wife, maimed by the explosion that revealed to Je/kyll the hideous secret of nature on which the play turns, and Lady Carew, a former love of Jekyll’s, and now wife of a distinguished diplomat, arc introduced by the play, v/right, but do not appear in Stevenson’s story. Their presence is, at once, a success and a drawback —a success in that it enables the onlooker to occasionally rest his lacerated nerves with a tonic j of something soft and human in the ](>n f r j nightmare of horror piled on horror—a ■: drawback in that it perverts Steven- i son’s plan of unfolding the two- charact- | ers in one, and at the same time, alters • the onlookers’ point of view, by giving motives, other than those of Steven- ( son, for the behavior of Hyde-. —What the Papers Say.— Miss Tittell Bruno as Lady Carew does excellent work, and is carrying out the prophecies made about her when she was such a conspicious success in “The. Woman in the Case” a few weeks ago. In “Dr. Jokyll and Mr. Hyde” her part is subordinated by many degrees to that of the hero, but she is still called upon for a good deal of tense dramatic work, and this she does capitally. Her swoon, when she comes upon the crouching monster, who, after throttling her husband has slashed at his murdered bodv with a knife in hideous enjoyment, is a realistic piece of acting indeed. The press is enthusiastic about her, and of her in this play the “Pall Mall Gazette” G ays:— . . “Miss; Tittell Brune displays intellectual power and a most finished technique in the part of Lady Carew, and fully justifies the high opinion we formed of‘her the other day in The Woman in the Case.’ She is that rare thing on our stage; now, an actress with a real dramatic power, and a faculty of complete self-absorption in the situation. Her elocution is admirable, and her every attitude and gesture is significant and ‘in the nieture.’ ”

The “Daily Telegraph”:—“Miss Tittell Brune acted with picturesque emphasis.” “The “Daily News”: —“Miss Tittell Brune, as Ladv Carew, made a distinct success, though there was very little for the others to do hut he lectured by Dr Jekyll or throttled by Mr. Hyde!” As Hyde it is said, and truly I should think, that Mr. H. B. Irving is presenting the most intense piece of woi'k that lie has ever done; liis Jekyll js a dull person, propounding uninteresting philosophy and with no “grip” or distinction, hut his Hyde is an ape-like, gibbering monster, with talon fingers always clutching the air, a horrible lunatic’s cackle, and a hissing in-draw-ing ef the breath like a panther. —Ecstasy of Terror.— His actions arc panther-like, too,and lie creeps and cringes and writhes until the feminine members of the audience, at- least, are in a very ecstasy of fascinated terror.

By drinking a dissolved riowder Jekyll changes to Hyde, and, in his own words, “sets free the fiend that lurks within us all,” and wonderful and very effective is Mr. Irving’s quick change from .one character to the other. As Jekyll lie is a tall, intellectual-looking man, partly bald, clean shaven; as Hyde, a very instant later,he is a stooping, quivering wretch, with stubble on his chin, ■long hair almost down to his eyes, with loose-lipped mouth drawn down at the corners and the eyes of a fiend. During t-lie first act the rapid change seemed feasible, but when, in Act 111. Dr. Lanyon, the doctor’s life-long friend, expecting Jekyll, meets Hyde, and demands an explanation, Hyde, with a warning, “Stay, then, and abide the truth!” turns into Jekyll, the lightning transition deserves the enthusiastic applause it gets. In less time than ittakes to tell, Hyde has turned, on pretence of getting something, aud Jekyll, the upright, pale student, is there. Lan. yon falls dead with the force of the shock. For just a little in the second act we are allowed a lighter touch, and Sir Danvers Carew, marked out to he murdered altei, philosophises cynically. To ci d like a saint, one must graduate, as a sinner,” and again, “I’ve broken all the commandments that concern the sins of a gentleman, and some of these not mentioned by Moses.” All through we are looking into two natures in one, and Jekyll changes to Hyde, and Hyde to Jekyll by aid of the Eastern drug—at last, however, the drug fa.- ; is, aud the bestial nature is uppermost. The- motion loses its efficacy • and the moment at last comes when Hvdo. must face the world as Hyde He rushes out from the cabinet m which, like an animal, he lias hidden, and dropping to the ground dies before the horrified' eyes of his friends and foes. Then it is* that, bending over him jus blind wife folds her arms round him, Cr ‘“Tknew! I knew! My love, my husband !”