Following the closure of Why Men Love Women and the departure of Allan Hamilton’s company, J.&N. Tait took over the direction of the Palace Theatre for a season of magic, featuring the American illusionist and escapologist Nicola the Great. Since the early 1900s, John and Nevin Tait’s concert and film promotions business had grown, with regular trips abroad resulting in a steady flow of novelties. The last time they were at the Palace was with the film The Story of the Kelly Gang in 1907.
Nicola—“The Handcuff King”, 1911
Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections
Charles Hawtrey in the London production of Inconstant George. Photo by Foulsham & Banfield.
Author’s collection
Nicola (ne William Mozart Nicol, 1880-1946) was on a three-year world trip that had begun in the Hawaiian Islands in 1910 and since that time he had perform throughout Japan, China, South-East Asia, and India. Nicola and his company of 15 was reported to be travelling with 15 tons of equipment.
Following seasons in Adelaide, Melbourne and elsewhere, Nicola finally arrived in Sydney. Although there was enthusiasm for his visit, he did not stay long in the harbour town, his show at the Palace running just three weeks, from 2-22 December 1911. The Sydney Sun (4 December 1911) recorded:
Nicola exceeded all expectations upon his first appearance at the Palace Theatre on Saturday, and the house, packed to the doors, was held delighted and mystified for nearly three hours by a succession of amazing feats and Illusions. Nicola works with astonishing quickness, never wasting an instant, and illusion follows so quickly that the audience have no time to tire.
Nicola was a variety artiste par excellence. He was said to cram more tricks into his program than any of the ‘old style’ magicians could present in three nights. From the manipulation of cards and coins to a sensational finale that saw him escape from a locked chest after being secured with handcuffs and locks, earning him the nickname “The Handcuff King”.
On Saturday, 23 December 1911, the Plimmer-Denniston company returned with the final attraction of 1911, the farcical comedy Inconstant George by Gladys Unger. Adapted from the French of Robert de Flers and Armand Calliavet, this play had first been produced in New York under Charles Frohman’s management at the Empire Theatre on 29 September 1909, where it ran for 85 performances. It featured John Drew in the title role of George Bullin, with Martin Sabine as Lucian De Versannes, Adelaide Prince as Odette De Versannes, Mary Boland as Micheline, Desmond Kelly as Vivette Lambert (a music-hall singer), and Marie Berkeley as Baroness Stecke. Frohman then took the play to London, where it notched up a further 218 performances at the Prince of Wales Theatre, with Charles Hawtrey as George. He was supported by C. Aubrey Smith (Lucien), Lydia Bilbrooke (Odette), Doris Lytton (Micheline) and Hilda Moore (Vivette), with Joan Langdale as Baroness Stecke.
The play was given its Australian premiere during the Plimmer-Denniston company’s Brisbane season on 18 November 1911 with Harry Plimmer (Georges Bullin), Reynolds Denniston (Lucien), Beatrice Day (Odette), Lizette Parkes (Micheline), Valentine Sidney (Vivette), and Mrs Brough as Baroness Stecke. One interesting piece of casting was Mrs Brough’s second husband, Cyril Bell, who played the role of the Butler at Lucien’s villa. The company repeated their roles in Sydney.1
Dubbed the “great pyjama play” on account of the title character being dressed in his PJs for the whole of the second act, the play also attracted attention for the up-to-date dresses worn by the women. These had been specially designed by dressmakers at David Jones and put on display in their George Street windows ahead of the opening season.
G.S. Titheradge, c.1908. Photo by Talma & Co., Sydney and Melbourne.
State Library of New South Wales, Sydney
Florence Brough. Photo by Falk, Sydney.
From The Stage Pictorial, 1913. Courtesy of Marriner Theatre Archive.
On 13 January 1912 Plimmer-Denniston presented a revival of Oscar Wilde’s A Woman of No Importance. First performed in London in 1893 and in Sydney in 1897, the current production saw Florence Brough and G.S. Titheradge reprising their original roles of Mrs Arbuthnot and Lord Illingworth, with principal supporting roles played by Harry Sweeney as Gerald Arbuthnot and Lizette Parkes as Hester Worsley. Critics relished the revival of this play, which, despite its serious central theme of a wronged woman reunited with her seducer, sparkled with witty lines and brilliant dialogue. A Woman of No Importance played until 2 February.
Due to the special engagement of G.S. Titheradge, Sydney Grundy’s play A Village Priest was staged for a week, from 3-9 February, providing Tith with the opportunity to play one of his most famous characters, the Abbe Dubois. Florence Brough reprised her role of the Comtesse de Tremeillan, with A.E. Greenaway as Jean Torquenie and Lizette Parkes as Jeanne Torquenie.2 Other characters were by Harry Plimmer, Beatrice Day, Beatrice Usher, Tempe Pigott, and Cyril Bell.
The final four nights of the season, 10-14 February, Nobody’s Daughter, the hit of the company’s previous season, was revived. The cast was unchanged.
Frances Ross, 1911. Photographer unknown.
State Library Victoria, Melbourne
Program cover for My Partner
Audiences packed the theatre for the opening of William Anderson’s season which commenced on 15 February 1912. He brought with him a new company headed by Walter Baker and Frances Ross. These performers had not been seen in Sydney since 1907 when they were members of the Bland Holt company. In 1908, with the retirement of the Bland Holts, Baker and Ross joined William Anderson’s combination and the following year (1909), they performed with him in Melbourne and on tour, including a trip to New Zealand. Three plays from that repertoire, My Partner, The French Spy and His Natural Life, were earmarked for the present season.
The first play, My Partner, was a new version of Bartley Campbell’s 1879 Californian gold mining drama. In its original format, it had been popular in Australia during the 1880s, with W.H. Leake (1881) and George Rignold (1884) both playing the role of Joe Saunders, a man who is wrongly accused of murdering his partner, Ned Singleton, and who on clearing his name wins the heart of his pal’s fiancée. On their reappearance, Baker and Ross received a rousing welcome with the Sydney Sun (19 February 1912, p.2) noting:
There was genuine spontaneity in the warm welcome which Mr Walter Baker and Miss Frances Ross received at the Palace Theatre on Saturday night, when, under the direction of Mr William Anderson, they staged “My Partner”. This story of the Californian diggings was well pictured, admirably mounted, and played with the skill characteristic of the two leading artistes. Mr Baker is an actor of many parts, and he gave numerous artistic touches to the character of Joe Saunders, lifting the part and the play out of the common-place. Miss Frances Ross has lost none of her old-time charm, and showed power and strength in all her scenes.
Directed by William Anderson, the play featured new scenery by Rege Robins.
With the play that followed, The French Spy by E. Hill Mitchelson (2-15 March), Baker and Ross fared even better. This play, first performed in England in 1900 and in Australia in 1901, was full of exciting situations, clever dialogue, and special effects, and provided greater opportunities for its leads. When it first entered William Anderson’s repertoire in 1909, Walter Baker played the role of Captain Vivian Somers, with Eugenie Duggan as Countess Andre de Loriac (aka The French Spy), and Frances Ross as Olga Romanoff. Ross now stepped into the title role.
Reviewing the opening night, The Sydney Morning Herald (4 March 1912, p.5), observed that as the Countess, Frances Ross “had a much better opportunity for dramatic and emotional display”, while Walter Baker was “quite at home in the part of Captain Somers, and played the manly but somewhat undiplomatic attache with all his old-time strength”. Likewise, the Referee (6 March 1912, p,16) observed: “Mr Walter Baker acted with well-controlled vigor right through the picturesquely mounted melodrama” and “Miss Ross was alternately audacious and appealing as the Countess who is conquered by love”.
The season concluded with His Natural Life, a dramatization of Marcus Clarke’s classic Australian novel. This was the Alfred Dampier version and had first produced by him in Australia in 1895. Playing for a limited season of twelve nights, from the 16 to 29 March, Walter Baker was Rev. John North (the role originally performed by Dampier), with Frances Ross as Sylvia Vicars and Herbert Bentley as Rufus Dawes.
Mary Marlowe, 1912. Photographer unknown.
From That Fragile Hour
Bert Bailey as Dad, 1912. Photo by May Moore.
National Library of Australia, Canberra
With the departure of Anderson’s company, Bert Bailey’s New Dramatic Organisation took their place. This was a new venture between comedian Bert Bailey, actor Edmund Duggan and business manager Julius Grant. The three men had previously been associated with William Anderson’s company, and this was their premiere season. Two new principals had been specially engaged, Guy Hastings, a British-born actor with a reputation in drama and Shakespeare, and a young Australian actress Mary Marlowe, who was returning home after three years in the UK.
The season commenced on 30 March 1912 with The Squatter’s Daughter. Written by Bert Bailey and Edmund Duggan, this play had broken performance records on its first production in 1909, when Eugenie Duggan created the role of the Violet Enderby. For this revival, Mary Marlowe played the heroine. “It was good melodrama and crowded with real Australian atmosphere”, she recalled in her memoirs. “For the first time on the stage I found out that heroines must have a good deal of courage to face the situations of danger inseparable from real drama. The part of Violet Enderby called on me to walk narrow logs perilously poised above gushing waterfalls, shoot at people while I went in terror of the gun, hold a horse steady with his eyes to the footlights while a rope was attached to his neck and the other end thrown to a hero on a cliff who then proceeded to climb down it.” 3
The Squatter’s Daughter played to packed houses for a month and on 20 April, the company’s second attraction, Bonnie Mary of Argyle by H.E. Housden, was performed for the first time in Australia.
Set in Scotland, Bonnie Mary was a conventional domestic melodrama, where the hero, George Fairfax, risks losing the family estates, when against the wishes of his wealthy uncle, marries Bonnie Mary, the daughter of the bailiff of the Fairfax property. With Guy Hastings as George Fairfax, Mary Marlowe as Mary Melrose (Bonnie Mary), George Treloar as Stephen Gaunt, Lilias Adeson as Lady Lucy Cathcart, it also featured Bert Bailey and Laura Roberts in the comedy roles of Hon. Bertie Barlow and Doris Fairfax. Mary Marlowe takes up the story:
Our second piece was Scottish. For no apparent reason it was called Bonnie Mary and the old tune was played softly by the orchestra every time I put foot on stage. I wore my red wig to make up for my bad Scottish accent. It was becoming and so was the white silk nightdress with the lavender bows for the bedroom scene.4
Bonnie Mary ran until 3 May—and the following evening, though no one knew it at the time—history would be made …
Much has been written about the next play, On Our Selection, which had its first showing at the Palace Theatre on 4 May 1912. Written jointly by Bert Bailey and Edmund Duggan, it was based on the stories of Steele Rudd. It would prove to be one of the most popular Australian plays of the era and would pave to way to further sequels as well as numerous films. The undeniable star of the production was Bert Bailey, who played the role of Dad (Joseph Murtagh). In the years to follow he would become almost indistinguishable from his stage creation. See Bert Bailey Started in Melodrama and Made a Fortune from a Beard.
The initial season of On Our Selection was limited to just three weeks and concluded on 17 May 1912. As the reviewer in the Referee (15 May 1912, p.16) noted: “… the business head of the Bert Bailey Company [Julius Grant] must have felt sorry that the firm had not secured a three months’ lease of the theatre.”
Sheet music cover for “I’ll Come Back to Bantry Bay”, sung by Maggie Moore in Mrs McSweeney
National Library of Australia, Canberra
Margaret Cooper, 1908. Photo by Foulsham & Banfield.
Author’s collection
Next, Maggie Moore (“Sydney’s own favourite”) made her reappearance, opening on 18 May 1912 in Mrs McSweeney. This piece, sub-titled ‘An Australian Musical Farcical Comedy in three acts and “a Bit” ’, was devised by Thomas E. Spencer and Toso Taylor, and adapted from Spencer’s 1906 collection of short stories, The Surprising Adventures of Bridget McSweeney. The play had premiered in Sydney the previous October at the Criterion, where its season was limited to just two weeks. Thereafter Maggie took the play on tour, with the promise of an early Sydney return. Spencer, who had died in May 1911, aged 65, did not have the opportunity to see his creation brought to life by Maggie Moore. The Sydney Morning Herald (20 May 1912, p.3) observed:
Generous in figure, with a beaming face, and a brogue that captured the hearts of her auditors, Mrs McSweeney, in the person of Miss Maggie Moore, was again cordially welcomed by her numerous friends at the Palace Theatre on Saturday. There was a fine house, and the piece went well throughout, to the accompaniment of rippling merriment and applause. Floral compliments were well in evidence during the evening, and “Mrs McSweeney” was so liberally treated in this respect that her remark to her better half, “Bedad, we’ll start a flower shop,” was fully justified.
The farce was a rollicking success and Maggie’s many songs, including “Paddy, Boy” and “I’ll Come Back to Bantry Bay” were well received by an enthusiastic audience. As one wag wrote, “Maggie Moore, as Mrs McSweeney, has struck oil at the Palace”.5 The season, which was under the auspices of Playwrights Limited, ran until 7 June 1912.
In an interesting aside, Playwrights Limited had been founded in 1911 by a syndicate of Sydney dramatists, including Rev. Hilhouse Taylor (aka Toso Taylor), to produce “comedies and dramas by Australian authors”. With the success of Mrs McSweeney, they hoped to build a 2000-seat theatre in Sydney. According to an article in the Sunday Times (26 May 1912, p.7), they had secured land on the “Town Hall side of George Street” and had plans underway for an American-style theatre featuring a roof garden, lounges, lifts, and refreshment rooms. Sadly, this proposal did not eventuate as by 1913, the company was in liquidation.6
Saturday, 8 June 1912 saw the return of J.&N. Tait with a new attraction, English entertainer Margaret Cooper, who was making her first appearance in Sydney. Having made her Australian debut in Adelaide on 6 April, she played seasons in Broken Hill and Melbourne, prior to arriving in Sydney. Cooper’s season was a huge success. From the opening night, which was given under the patronage and in the presence of their Excellencies the Governor-General, Lady Denman, and Suite, to her farewell four weeks later, on 5 July 1912, she was received with rapturous applause by an adoring audience, becoming an instant favourite with Sydneysiders.
Tall and imposing and beautifully dressed, Margaret Cooper’s at-piano entertainment showed her to be an accomplished pianist and vocalist. The headlines boasted: “A Brilliant Artist” (The Sun), “Brilliant Debut in Sydney” (Sydney Morning Herald), and “Miss Margaret Cooper Delights a Crowded Audience” (Daily Telegraph). The Sydney Mail (12 June 1912, p.21) provided an apt summary:
Miss Margaret Cooper’s first concert in Sydney, which took place at the Palace Theatre last Saturday night, was an unqualified success. This clever artist, by a method entirely her own, which she calls “songs-at-the-piano,” sung her way into the hearts of a large and warmly demonstrative audience … Never have Sydney people been offered a treat of the kind that Miss Cooper presents them with, and the enthusiastic encores that marked the conclusion of each of her numbers bore eloquent testimony to the popularity with which they were received.
Her repertoire was drawn from a range of sources. Several had been composed by A. Scott-Gatty, who had furnished comic songs for the German Reed/Corney Grain entertainments in the 1870s (“What Rot”, “Hullo, Tu-Tu” etc), while others came from popular musicals and revues (“Waltz Me Around Again Willie” from The New Aladdin and “My Moon” by H.G. Pelissier). Also “The Lark Now Leaves”, a setting of a poem by Sir William Davenant, and “Agatha Green” and other songs by Arthur M. Humble-Crofts (whom she had married in 1910). She sang dozens of songs and the evening’s performance was enhanced by the attraction of several associate artists including Signor Manzoni (Magician of the Mandolin), H. Scott Leslie (Actor, Humourist, Raconteur), Horace Whitty (Eminent English Baritone) and Charles Lawrence (Pianist).
Listen to Margaret Cooper singing “Hullo, Tu Tu” on YouTube
Edna Keeley, 1912
From flyer, State Library Victoria, Melbourne
Sheet music cover for “A Four Leaf Clover”, sung by Allen Doone in Wearing of the Green
National Library of Australia, Canberra
The next occupant of the Palace was American performer Allen Doone, who was making a return visit to Sydney, having previously performed at the Adelphi (under George Marlow’s management) during October 1911. Still in his thirties, Doone was an actor in the Andrew Mack vein. He specialised in good-hearted Irishmen, who sang romantic ballads and who fell in love with equally big-hearted Irish colleens. With himself as the lead, he was accompanied by Edna Keeley, and his own company that included Richard Bellairs, Tom Buckley, Ronald W. Riley, Ethel Grist, Onslow Edgeworth, Frank Cotter, Frank Cullinane, Ethel Bashford, and Frank Harcourt.
Doone’s season commenced on 6 July 1912 with the first Australian production of The Wearing of the Green, a musical costume drama by Theo Burt Sayre (the author of Andrew Mack’s hit play Tom Moore), inspired by the song of the same name by Dion Boucicault. As the romantic but deeply patriotic Irishman, Phillip Fitzgerald, a key scene in the play sees him on the stage of a Dublin theatre, where in an act of nationalistic fervour he grabs the Irish flag and sings the prohibited song, “The Wearing of the Green”, though he knows the penalty for doing so is death. Needless to say, Phillip is pardoned for his action and by the end of the play wins the hand of his sweetheart, Norah McNamara. In addition to the title song, Doone also sang “Norah McNamara”, “A Four Leaf Clover” and “Ireland, My Ireland”. The theatre was suitably adorned with Irish and American flags.
Scene from Sweet County Kerry. From flyer, State Library Victoria, Melbourne.
Doone’s next offerings came from his repertoire of Irish plays, all written by him. The first, opening on 27 July 1912, was Sweet County Kerry, in which he played Dan O’Hara with Edna Keeley as his sweetheart Nora Drew. Songs included “Noreen”, “Endearing Young Charms”, “A Toast to Erin” and “Love’s Language”. This was followed by Molly Bawn on the 10 August, with Doone and Edna as Ted Luttrell and Eleanor Massereene (Molly Bawn). Songs included “Molly’s Eyes are Irish”, “Molly Bawn”, “Colleen Bawn” and a reprise of “A Toast to Erin”. The final play of the season was A Romance in Ireland, which played from 24-30 August, with Allen Doone as Larry O’Daly (A Gay Gossoon) and Edna Keeley as Nora Doyle (A sweet Colleen). Songs included “My Lass from Erin’s Isle”, “The Low Back’d Car”, “Dear Old Ireland” and the pathetic ballad “Where My Dear Mother Lies”.
Doone would continue to be a favourite with Sydney audiences and would continue to grace the city’s stages, including that of the Palace, for the next 24 years.
Home-made Australian drama returned to the Palace with the next occupant, Philip Lytton. Well-known in amateur theatre circles and for his “moving theatre” company which had been touring Australia since 1907, bringing drama to remote parts of Australia, Lytton was also an aspiring dramatist. With W.E. Vincent (who was also his representative/agent), he co-authored a four-act Australian drama, The Girl from Wayback, described in the bills as an original and sensational Australian drama in four acts—“Symbolical of Australian life—abounding in stirring incident, dramatic episode, and brimful of humour”—and inspired by the stories “The Waybacks”, written by Henry Fletcher for the Sunday Times. For the current season Lytton assembled a new company which he called the New English and Australian Brilliant Dramatic Company, headed by English actress Madge Hope. Having married Lytton in Sydney in September 1901, she was his leading lady in more ways than one! The two had met in 1900 when they were both members of W.F. Hawtrey’s A Message from Mars company.
Reviews for The Girl from Wayback, which opened on 31 August 1912, were generally positive, with the Sydney Morning Herald (2 September 1912, p.3) calling it a “serviceable melodrama of a well-defined type”. Set on a Riverina station, the central character is the feisty daughter of the landowner, who with the assistance of a sundowner and a black tracker seeks to out manoeuvre confidence men who are trying to take possession of her father’s land and stock. The character of Myrtle Loughnane was played by Madge Hope who was widely praised for her energetic performance.
This was the first Sydney staging of the play. It seems it may have had its first outing under the title The Girl from Outback, when it was performed by Lytton’s Moving Theatre company in Bundaberg in May 1912.7
The Girl from Wayback was withdrawn on 20 September, and replaced by a new London melodrama, What Women Suffer by H.G. Brandon. Once again, Madge Hope shone as the heroine, Edith Coventry, who, after her husband is wrongly condemned to penal servitude, comes under the influence of cruel villain, who in the play’s final scene straps her young son to a bench in a sawmill and sets the blade whizzing. But in characteristic melodramatic tradition the hero (having escaped from prison) arrives just in time to overpower the villain, save his son, and clasp his fainting wife in his arms. This was the first Australian production of Brandon’s play, which had had its premiere at the Carlton Theatre in Greenwich in July 1905. It was also performed under the title Woman Pays for All. As What Women Suffer, it was well-known to many theatregoers on account of the story having been used for a 1911 Australian feature-film made by Alfred Rolfe for the Australian Photo-Play Company.8
For the final nights of the season, from 2-11 October, The Girl from Wayback was revived “by special request”.
The Great Jansen—poster for his 1911/1912 Australasian tour
State Library Victoria, Melbourne
Madge McIntosh, pictured in 1908
Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections
Next, the Palace hosted another touring magic act—this time The Great Jansen (ne Harry August Jansen, 1883-1955), who was making a return visit to Sydney, prior to his departure for America. Heralded as “The Greatest Living Magician and his Brilliant American Entertainers”, the Danish-American magician had been touring Australia since the beginning of the year, having made his antipodean debut at the Melbourne Town Hall in January. His manager, Felix Blei (1874-1942), had also been responsible for Nicola, who played the Palace earlier in the year. Accompanied by his wife, Edna M. Herr, the Jansens were said to make a very handsome couple. Jansen played for two-weeks only, from 12-26 October. But this was not the last time he would perform before the Sydney public. He would return in 1922 and again in 1933 and 1935, under the new sobriquet of Dante.
On 26 October 1912, Francis Talbot’s company Talbot Ltd, took over the Palace for a short season, introducing a new dramatic company, headed by Madge McIntosh, with the promise of two new plays by Sydney-born writer Randolph Bedford (1868-1941): The Unseen Eye and The Love Child. The promotion of drama was a new venture for Talbot who had previously managed concert tours for Calve and Amy Castles.
The first play, The Unseen Eye, sub-titled “A play of Australian City Life in four acts”, featured Madge McIntosh as Mabel Haughton. She was supported by Gerald Kay Souper (Eric Forbes), George E. Bryant (Roderick Speed), Harry Halley (Orry Squires), Richard Bellairs (John Proctor), Maggie Knight (Mrs Haughton), Margherita Bedford (Lucy), Mabel Russell (Eliza Squires), and Florence Leigh (Mrs Leghorn). The play was directed by George E. Bryant, with scenery by Harry Grist.
The Unseen Eye was not Bedford’s first play. Two previous plays, White Australia, or the Empty North (1909) and The Lady of the Pluckup (1911) had been staged in Melbourne.9
This was Madge McIntosh’s second visit to Australia. In 1907/1908 she was leading lady for Meynell and Gunn, appearing in Her Love Against the World. She returned in 1912 for JCW’s production of The Blue Bird, but with that engagement finished, she accepted a starring role with the present company ahead of her planned return to the UK in December.
The second play was not The Love Child, as promised, but a four-act drama by Victor Widnell entitled A Woman of Impulse. Opening on 16 November, for the first time in Australia, it featured Madge McIntosh as Lady Langford, a role she had play on tour in England in 1903. Initially performed in Liverpool in March 1901, this play was given its London premiere in September 1902 under the title Secret and Confidential, with Gertrude Kingston as Lady Langford. At the Palace, Madge McIntosh was supported by George Bryant as Carl Navourac, Gerald Kay Souper as Sir Matthew West, Maggie Knight as Mrs Dudley and Richard Bellairs as Sir George Langford.
The season was concluded on 23 November.
After a full year of attractions and bumper crowds, bookings trailed off, and from 24 November to 12 December, the Palace was dark. The doors opened again on 13 December when Charles Haddon Chamber’s The Awakening was staged in aid of the Brotherhood of the Good Shepherd. Performed under the patronage and in the presence of Lord and Lady Chelmsford, the cast which comprised Dorothy Cumming, Kathleen McDonald, Beatrice McDonald, Muriel Dangar, Norman Lloyd, C. Sharland, Arthur Thompson, Leslie Casey, and was headed by Lily Titheradge (daughter of G.S. Titheradge). This was the first Australian performance of Chambers’ play, which had originally been staged in London in 1901.10
The following night, 14 December 1912, old time actor-manager A.W. Taylor took over the theatre for a week, with a revival of the 1863 drama The Ticket-of-Leave Man by Tom Taylor, with Taylor as Bob Brierley (a role first performed in Australia by Joseph Jefferson). He was supported by Alice Chandler as May Edwards, Barnard Gilbert as Melter Moss, Arthur Bernard as Jim Dalton (alias The Tiger), and Lena Langridge as Mrs Willoughby. Sadly this production was poorly received by critics who found the play old fashioned and contrived and A.W. Taylor’s performance, in particular, colourless and stagey.11
Happily, the year was about to end on a high note with the return of Allen Doone on 21 December.
To be continued
Endnotes
1. Following the death of her first husband the actor-manager Robert Brough in 1906, Florence Brough met Cyril Bell, an electrical engineer turned actor, who was 25 years her junior. Their marriage in Sydney in July 1909 raised a few eyebrows. Cyril Bell had made his stage debut in August 1909 playing a small role in Hugh J. Ward’s production of The Fencing Master.
2. The first Australian production of A Village Priest took place at the Garrick Theatre in Sydney on 19 September 1891, with Charles Cartwright as the Abbe Dubois and Olga Nethersole as the Comtesse De Tremeillan. When the play had its first performance in Melbourne at the Bijou Theatre on 10 September 1892, under the auspices of the Brough-Boucicault Company, the Abbe was performed by G.S Titheradge, with Jennie Watt Tanner as the Comtesse. Mrs Brough replaced her when the play was revived in 1893. Both Titheradge and Mrs Brough repeated these characters many times between 1893 and 1913, but the roles were not exclusively theirs.
3. That Fragile Hour, p.90
4. ibid.
5. The Truth (Brisbane), 26 May 1912, p.6
6. See also, Rev. T. H. Taylor, playwright [22 February 1913] (australianculture.org)
7. The Bundaberg Mail and Burnett Advertiser (QLD), 29 May 1912, p.2
8. See What Women Suffer - Wikipedia
9. Australian Melodrama, p. 111. See also Biography - George Randolph Bedford - Australian Dictionary of Biography (anu.edu.au)
10. See articles by Roger Neill and Rob Morrison.
11. Evening News, 16 December 1912, p.3
References
Eric Irvin, Australian Melodrama: Eighty years of popular theatre, Hale & Iremonger, 1981
Mary Marlowe, That Fragile Hour: An Autobiography, Angus & Robertson Publishers, 1990
Allardyce Nicoll, English Drama 1900–1930: The beginnings of the modern period, Cambridge University Press, 1973
Andrew Pike & Ross Cooper, Australian Film, 1900–1977, Oxford University Press in association with The Australian Film Institute, 1980
Charles Waller, Magical Nights at the Theatre, edited and published by Gerald Taylor, 1980
J.P. Wearing, The London Stage, 1900–1909: A calendar of productions, performers, and personnel, 2nd edition, Rowman & Littlefield, 2014
J.P. Wearing, The London Stage, 1910–1919: A calendar of productions, performers, and personnel, 2nd edition, Rowman & Littlefield, 2014
Newspapers
Trove, https://trove.nla.gov.au/
Pictures
Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections
Marriner Theatre Archive
National Library of Australia, Canberra
State Library of New South Wales, Sydney
State Library Victoria, Melbourne
With thanks to
Rob Morrison
