Lilian Tucker

J.& N. TAIT’S 1916 smash hit, Peg o’ My Heart, having just concluded a ‘long and prosperous tour of New Zealand’, played a limited return season at the Palace from 23 December 1916. Ahead of its opening, a notice in the daily newspapers ran:

Sydney theatre-goers badly need you. We are having too many propaganda entertainments these days, and your sweetening influence will do much to restore our jaded tastes to normal. Your infectious laugh and mischievous manners will help us to forget strikes, political controversies, and such like worries. We shall be in full force to greet you on Saturday next at the Palace.¹

With the exception of A.L. Pearce, who had replaced James Gelderd in the role of Christian Brent,² the cast was the same as on the first production, with Sara Allgood as Peg, Gerald Henson as Jerry, Cecil Brooking as Alaric Chichester, Ernest Ruston as Montgomery Hawkes, Thomas Sidney as Jarvis, Doris Gilham as Mrs Chichester, Beatrice Yaldwyn as Ethel Chichester, and Betty MacMillan as Bennett.

As expected, Sara Allgood and the company received a warm welcome and the play attracted packed houses for a month, with the Daily Telegraph (25 December 1916) reminding playgoers that Peg ‘is certainly one of the most attractive of modern comedies, and one that will stand seeing a second, and even a third time’.

On 25 December, Peg stepped aside for a special Christmas night concert, which featured an attractive line up of talent including monologist Lawrence Campbell, basso Malcolm McEachern, soprano Gladys Davis, tenor Claud McBurney, and Belgian violinist Florent Hoogstoel.

With a new musical, Very Good Eddie, scheduled to open on 10 February 1917, the Taits, who had taken a long lease on the Palace, determined to have the theatre redecorated prior to the show’s opening. As a result, Peg o’ My Heart was reluctantly withdrawn on 20 January 1917, after only a month.

In late January, the decorators moved in to give the Palace a ‘lighter and brighter look’. The ‘former sombre tints’ were replaced by a new scheme of cream and gold, and several remaining elements of Phil Goatcher’s original design were swept away. The Moorish cupolas over the boxes were gone and the ‘large ornamental pillars’ supporting the dress circle were replaced by ‘slender steel posts’, which allowed for ‘a clear view of the stage from all parts of the stalls’. Gone too was the heavily embroidered stage curtain, which was replaced by a ‘new one of modern design’. The seats in the stalls and dress circle were reupholstered in old gold and royal blue respectively, and a new lighting scheme was introduced. As the World’s News opined, ‘Altogether the renovation scheme is a decided success, and makes the Palace one of the cosiest and most attractive theatres in Australia’.³ The work was carried out by Beard, Watson & Co. Ltd. and Althouse & Geiger.

At the same time, E.J. Tait returned from America, bringing with him not only new artists for Very Good Eddie, but several new attractions for the coming seasons. These included the comedies Turn to the Right and The Only Son, both by Winchell Smith, the drama Under Sentence by Roy Cooper Megrue and Irving S. Cobb, and the musical Adele by Eugene Bricquet.⁴

Principals in the original Broadway production of Very Good Eddie, 1915, with Alice Dovey and Ernest Truex (centre). Photo by White Studio. New York Public Library, New York.

For the title role in Very Good Eddie, E.J. Tait announced that he had secured the services of Barry Lupino. ‘It took me a long time to secure the right artist for little Eddie, but I luckily found him in Barry Lupino, who was playing at the Shubert Brothers’ Winter Garden [in Robinson Crusoe Jr], and from them I contrived to secure his release’.⁵ Lupino, who had been in Australia before, notably as a pantomime performer, was also engaged to direct the show.

With the theatre refreshed, a new chapter in the history of the Palace began with the staging of Very Good Eddie for the first time in Australia. As The Sun (11 February 1917) would note, by expanding their focus to include plays and musicals, ‘the firm [of J. & N. Tait] has fairly won for itself a place in Australia’s theatrical firmament’.

Very Good Eddieis a three-act musical by Guy Bolton and Philip Bartholomae, adapted from Bartholomae’s 1911 comedy Over Night. With music by Jerome Kern and lyrics by Schuyler Greene, it had been a huge hit on Broadway where it received its premiere at the Princess Theatre.⁶ On Broadway, the show ran for a total of 341 performances from 23 December 1915, with Ernest Truex as Eddie and Alice Dovey as Elsie. It was the second of the famed ‘Princess Theatre musicals’ penned by the team of Bolton and Kern, following 1915’s Nobody Home.

The musical yielded few ‘smash hits’, though “Babes in the Wood” (sung by Eddie and Elsie) and “Katy did” (sung by Madame Matroppo) fared well.

The plot of Very Good Eddie revolves around two newlyweds, Eddie and Georgina Kettle and Percy and Elsie Darling, who are travelling by boat to their honeymoon hotel, but when the boat stops Georgina and Percy are accidently left behind. Eddie is small and weak willed and away from his bossy wife, Elsie seeks his protection when the two spend the night at an inn as a storm rages overhead. This experience makes a new man out of Eddie, and when the couples are reunited, Eddie feels that he can face up to Georgina.

The role of Eddie was perfectly realised by Barry Lupino, with Fayette Perry as Elsie, Emily Fitzroy as Georgina, and George Whitehead as Percy. Other characters were played by Daisy Revette (Victoria Lake), Andrew Higginson (Dick Rivers), Nan Taylor (Madame Matroppo), Lilian Tucker (Elsie Lilly) and John Beck (Al Cleveland).

Fayette Perry and Barry Lupino in Very Good Eddie

From Table Talk (Melbourne), 3 May 1917

Sheet music cover for ‘Babes in the Wood’ from Very Good Eddie

National Library of Australia, Canberra

The new artists had been engaged by E.J. Tait in America including Fayette Perry (‘a young actress of many varied parts with stock companies’), Lilian Tucker (‘a fair-haired Norwegian beauty’), John Beck (‘an excellent comedian of a type new to our playgoers’), and Daisy Revette (‘a pretty and petite singer and actress’), ⁷ this last named actress being the wife of Andrew Higginson. Both Higginson and Emily Fitzroy had enjoyed success in Australia before. In 1907 Higginson had achieved huge accolades playing the role of Prince Danilo in The Merry Widow opposite Carrie Moore, while Emily Fitzroy had performed widely in Australia, England and the USA from the 1880s. In addition, George Whitehead and Nan Taylor were both already in Australia, Whitehead since 1903 as a popular baritone in musicals and on the concert and recital stage, and Nan Taylor since 1914 as a member of the Bunty Pulls the Strings company.

Curiously, the musical received a somewhat indifferent reception from the critics. The Sydney Morning Herald(12 February 1917) for example observed:

“Very Good Eddie” … is founded on the American farce “Overnight”, but in the result the story is gradually submerged in the billowy breakers of song and dance. It was, therefore, from the aspect of catchy revue that the audience tolerably applauded its cleverly presented nonsense, and enjoyed with enthusiasm two or three really charmful musical numbers.

The Sun (11 February 1917) called it ‘a palatable mixture of musical comedy and revue’, while the Sunday Times (11 February 1917) was hardly effusive either, noting rather bluntly, ‘The scenery was appropriate and excellent, the grouping and dances most effective, and the variety turns were much appreciated’.

Possibly due to the lukewarm reviews, Very Good Eddie took a while to really catch on. In late-February, a musicians strike nearly derailed proceedings, but by early March it was said to be attracting ‘increased patronage’ and ‘is now running smoothly as may be expected’.⁸ Barry Lupino was the undoubted star of the show:

Barry Lupino’s comedy work in the role of Eddie Kettle is the mainstay of the show, and he is a big surprise to those who have always associated him with the knock-out style of pantomime work, for he plays the character of the downtrodden, undersized bridegroom in a quite convincing manner which compels laughter or tear, for if you are not laughing at him, you are pitying him.⁹

Lupino and co. took a break on Good Friday when an attractive program of recital and song was presented. Performers included elocutionist Lawrence Campbell; Nellie Leach and Mr Martinelli in selections from La Boheme; with contributions by soprano Dorrie Ward, baritone Albert Goossens, violinist Florent Hoogstoel, and the baritone from the Very Good Eddie company, George Whitehead.

Very Good Eddie played for nine weeks, closing on 18 April, after which the company of sixty departed for Melbourne. Although it was slow out of the blocks, by the end of the season the musical was playing to packed and enthusiastic houses and was said to have returned a handsome profit.¹⁰

Poster for Turn to the Right, c.1917. Lithograph by The Strobridge Lithographic Company, Cincinnati and New York.

University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries

American actor Walter P. Richardson who played Joe Bascom in the Australian production of Turn to the Right

From The Lone Hand (Sydney), 2 April 1917

The next production, opening on 21 April, was Turn to the Right, for the first time in Sydney. A comedy by Winchell Smith and John E. Hazzard, this play had received its Australian premiere in Melbourne, at the King’s Theatre, on 24 February 1917, having debuted at the Gaiety Theatre in New York in August 1916 where it was still playing to packed houses. It would go on to achieve a run of 435 performances, closing on 29 August 1917, with Forrest Winant, William E. Meehan and Frank Nelson as the leads.

Several of Winchell Smith’s plays had already been seen in Australia, including Brewster’s Millions, The Boomerang and The Fortune Hunter. This new play belonged to genre of ‘crook comedies’. It concerns Joe Bascom, a young man newly released from prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Returning to his mother’s peach farm, where he hopes to settle down, he discovers that his mother is about to lose her property to the unscrupulous Deacon Tillinger. Enlisting the services of two prison chums, “Muggs” and Gilly, he devises a plan to undermine the Deacon and save Mrs Bascom’s farm. Under the influence of Joe’s mother, the ex-prisoners turn over a new leaf, and all three men win the hearts of local girls.

From The Critic (Adelaide), 22 August 1917

The four leads were new to Australia, having been ‘chosen by the authors’, including Walter P. Richardson (Joe Bascom), John Junior (“Muggs”), Stapleton Kent (Gilly), and Margaret Calvert (Mrs Bascom). The newcomers were ‘augmented by several well-known favourite Australian actors and actresses’, namely George Chalmers as Deacon Tillinger, with Gaston Mervale (returning to Australia after five years abroad), Carleton Stuart, Lizette Parkes, Eileen Sparks, Nancye Stewart and Francee Anderson (aka Judith Anderson) in supporting roles. Gaston Mervale also directed the play.

More scenes from Turn to the Right. From The Critic (Adelaide), 8 August 1917.

With Turn to the Right, the Taits had a sure-fire winner. The daily papers gave it the thumbs up! ‘Of all the plays that have been produced in Sydney during the last few years’, the Sunday Times (22 April 1917) enthused, ‘none has achieved such an immediate success as was the case with Turn to the Right at the Palace Theatre last night’. Likewise, the Referee (25 April 1917) observed, ‘This play of mirth, morals, and peach preserves as given at the Palace Theatre on Saturday last, is likely to remain a big drawing card as long as the firm cares to continue it’. The World’s News (5 May 1917) hit the nail on the head when describing the secret to the play’s success:

From the commencement of the prologue until the final curtain, the audience is in a state of varying emotion, from heart pulling sympathy to uncontrolled laughter. “Turn to the Right” appeals not only to men … but has a direct appeal for women. Its humour is fresh and clean, the plot is based upon the regeneration of two young crooks through the influence of a saintly old woman, and her rescue from the hands of a sharper by these boys in a series of excruciatingly funny and ingenious episodes.

Despite the crowded houses and the continued effusive reviews Turn to the Right was withdrawn after nine weeks to make way for a new entertainment, Look Who’s Here.

This production was the brainchild of Sydney James and Jack Waller. James was well known to Sydney theatregoers having enjoyed two long seasons at the Palace with his Royal Strollers during 1915 and 1916. His co-divisor, Jack Waller, was a young Englishman, who had been performing with various concert parties in Australia since 1913. More an entertainment than a revue, this new show had premiered to enthusiastic houses at the Lyric Theatre in St Kilda (Melbourne) in January 1917, thereafter going on tour, including stop offs in Adelaide and Brisbane. Ahead of its opening in Sydney, Sydney James was quoted in the Sunday Times (3 June 1917), ‘We term the production a kaleidoscopic innovation, inasmuch as it comprises a full and complete mockery of things that are, and things that are not, and introduces mirth and music in a form of novelty never yet attempted by any actor, author or human being’!

Advertisement for Look Who’s Here. From The Sun (Sydney), 5 August 1917.

Comprising some forty artists, including the Purple Band of twenty performers under the direction of Simms Waller, the Look Who’s Here duly opened at the Palace on 30 June 1917. The Sydney Morning Herald found the show amusing, but argued that although it was original, it was hardly innovative, ‘as it follows the generic idea of Sydney James’s famous Strollers’. Nevertheless, it had the audience ‘alternatively convulsed with laughter at the witty dialogue and burlesque situations or uplifted by the efficient rendering of music from classic opera’. ¹¹ As with the Stollers, the entertainment was divided into two parts, comprising a mixture of music, sketches, dances and songs. The musical interludes were performed by the Purple Band whose repertoire spanned from grand opera to ragtime. In addition to Sydney James and Jack Waller, the line up of talented artists included Madeline Rossiter, Ada Smart, Connie Milne, Cecilia Gold, Wylie Watson, Frederick Dennet and Gregory Ivanoff (violin virtuoso). As the Sydney Bulletin quipped:

The combined “Look Who’s Here” co. (made up of James’s “Strollers” and Waller’s “Ideals”) has no blanks in it and every member has something to do that suits him – or her. The result is that the smartly mounted black-and-white entertainment bubbles nearly all the time … There’s something for everybody in this clever show, and good measure for all.¹²

Over the course of the season regular changes to the program saw the introduction of new and topical routines. At this time Sydney was experiencing crippling transport strikes and as a result, the show was forced to close for a fortnight. It re-opened on 1 September and played for another month, closing on 28 September. With a new show knocking at the door, Look Who’s Here transferred to the Theatre Royal for an additional fortnight.

Isabel Jay as Sybil Cunningham in the original 1905 London production of The White Chrysanthemum

Author’s collection

American/Norwegian soprano Lilian Tucker, who played Sybil in the Australian production of The White Chrysanthemum

From The Lone Hand (Sydney), 1 February 1917

On 29 September the Taits introduced their second new musical for the year: The White Chrysanthemum, having received its Australian premiere at the King’s Theatre in Melbourne on 2 June 1917. This musical, by Leedham Bantock and Arthur Anderson with music by Howard Talbot, was not a new piece by any means. It had first been performed in London in 1905 at the Criterion Theatre, with Rutland Barrington, Henry Lytton, Lawrence Grossmith, Marie George, Millie Legarde and Isobel Jay.

Set in Japan, The White Chrysanthemum featured many of the leads from Very Good Eddie, including Lilian Tucker (Sybil Cunningham/O San), Andrew Higginson (Hon. Chippendale Belmont), Fayette Perry (Cornelia Vanderdecken), Daisy Revette (Betty Kenyon), Emily Fitzroy (Mrs Sin Chong) and John Beck (Perks), with Frank Greene as Lieutenant Reginald Armitage (replacing Vernon Irving who had created the role in Melbourne). Barry Lupino played the role of Samuel Wilkins, the purser on the S.Y. Skylark, and directed.

The thin plot revolves around Admiral Sir Horatio Armitage’s wish that his son, Lieutenant Reginald Armitage, marries a rich American heiress, Cornelia Vanderdecken. Reggie, however, is in love with Sybil Cunningham, and with the help of Reggie’s friend Chippy, she follows him to Japan, disguising herself as a Japanese girl. When she sees Reggie and Cornelia together, she runs away, but when her cousin Betty explains the truth of the situation, she and Reggie are reunited. Betty marries Sir Horatio and Chippy pairs off with Cornelia.

Reviewers admired the beautiful settings and costumes, and the catchy songs, especially Lilian Tucker, who had the chance to display her vocal skills. But Barry Lupino stole the show with his amusing antics, notably his ‘lightning dives through windows and trap-doors’, which are ‘the real peg on which the little comedy hangs’.¹³ Two weeks into the season he introduced the patter song, “Chrysanthemums”, in which he ludicrously wrestles with the word on his way home after an evening out. Composed by David Worton and George Arthurs, Lupino had scored a success with it when he performed it in the pantomime The Forty Thievesin Melbourne during 1913/1914. During the final week of the season, Little Vera Bain, a child dancer, made her first appearance in ‘The Dying Swan’, a specially devised ballet number.

Publicity photo taken during the Melbourne season with Vernon Irving as Lieut. Reginald Armitage, Lilian Tucker as O San (Sybil Cunningham), Andrew Higginson as Hon. Chippendale Belmont and Daisy Revette as Betty Kenyon in The White Chrysanthemum. From The Critic (Adelaide), 14 November 1917.

The White Chrysanthemum was withdrawn on 26 October and was followed by a brief revival of Very Good Eddie. Except for George Whitehead and Nan Taylor, whose roles were played by Frank Greene and Athenia Claudius, the cast was the same.

A week later, on 3 November, the Palace welcomed back Philip Lytton and The Waybacks for a three-week season. As previously, Madge Hope, William Stewart and Gladys Leigh played their original roles of Felicity Holmes and Dads and Mums Wayback. Since its first outing at the Palace in October 1915, the play had been seen throughout Australia with marked success. Philip Lytton attributed its popularity to its ‘clean fun, coupled with strong human interest’, going on to say, ‘It may not be especially credible or high flown, but it meets the people on a familiar basis of common human feeling, and it always gives a sort of boost to the glad side of life’.¹⁴

Following the departure of Dads and Mums Wayback, films returned to the Palace with Idle Wives. This new American film, starring Lois Weber, was screened three times daily. From 3 December, the divorce drama Should She Obey?was added to the bill. A week later, Jack and the Beanstalk, advertised as William Fox’s First Kiddie Film, played twice daily. The season of films closed on 21 December.

The year concluded with the return of the Taits and a brand-new play, The New Henrietta, which opened on 22 December. This play, a four-act comedy-drama by Winchell Smith (co-author of Turn to the Right) and Victor Mapes, had originally been earmarked for production at the Palace in May 1917, but the success of Turn to the Right was so great that it was held over.

First performed in America by a company led by comedian William H. Crane, it played a short try-out season in Buffalo and Philadelphia ahead of opening at New York’s Knickerbocker Theatre in December 1913. The play was a modernisation by Smith and Mapes of a play by Bronson Howard, The Henrietta, originally performed in 1887 with Crane as Nicholas Vanalstyne and Stuart Robson as his son Bertie. With the new play, Crane reprised his old role, with Douglas Fairbanks as the new Bertie. Set in the world of the New York stock exchange, the plot centres on the head of a wealthy family who owns the controlling interest in a copper mine, ‘The New Henrietta’. When his daughter’s husband seeks to obtain control of the mine by gambling his father-in-law’s money on the exchange, he is thwarted at the last moment by his brother-in-law, Bertie, whom everyone had written off as a fop and nonentity.

The New Henrietta received its first Australian outing in Brisbane, with seasons in Newcastle, Hobart, Launceston and Adelaide—and New Zealand to follow. Walter P. Richardson played the mining magnate, with John Junior as Bertie, and Lilian Tucker and Gaston Mervale as his daughter and son-in-law. Other roles were played by Lizette Parkes, Gerald Kay Souper and Francee Anderson, with Emily Fitzroy as a fashionable widow.

Though the plot reads as serious drama, the play contained many comic elements, notably the final act, which was described by the Sydney Bulletin (3 January 1918) as ‘genuine comedy’:

The millionaire, faced with ruin and harried by love for the widow, smashes a panic in Wall-street, and in the feverish intervals of interviewing brokers, telephoning bankers, assaulting intruding visitors and using language to his scurrying clerks, manages to propose to the lady.

The play, however, did not appeal to Sydneysiders, and from Saturday 12 January 1918, just three weeks into the run, Turn to the Right was substituted.

To be continued

Endnotes

1. Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 20 December 1916, p.12. The same article also noted that Peg o’ My Heart ‘holds the record for the longest run of any comedy played in Australasia’.

2. The Mirror of Australia(Sydney), 23 December 1916, p.12. A.J. Pearce took over the role of Brent prior to the New Zealand tour. He had been serving as stage manager since the commencement of the Australian tour.

3. World’s News (Sydney), 10 February 1917, p.5. See also Sydney Morning Herald, 10 February 1917, p.8. Sadly, there are no photographs of the theatre’s interior at this time, but it seems the original proscenium arch, balcony fronts and ceiling dome were still extant.

4. ‘E.J. Tait’s Return: Theatrical Novelties for 1917’, Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 13 January 1917, p.14.

5. ibid.

6. A version of the musical, adapted by Bartholomae, played a short tryout season in Schenectady, Albany and New Haven during November 1915, but due to negative reviews, Guy Bolton was engaged to totally rework the script for its Broadway premiere. According to James Leve (American Musical Theater, p.62), Bolton ‘retained some of Bartholomae’s lines but restructured the subplots and expunged the political content, including most of the references to the suffragist movement. Bolton’s revised script was less confusing, but lost some of the original’s comic intrigue. It retained some of Schuyler Greene’s lyrics and included new ones by Herbert [Reynolds]’.

7. ‘E.J. Tait’s Return: Theatrical Novelties for 1917’, Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 13 January 1917, p.14.

8. Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 7 March 1917, p.11

9. Referee (Sydney), 14 March 1917, p.14

10. The Lone Hand (Sydney), 2 September 1918, p.435

11. Sydney Morning Herald, 2 July 1917, p.

12. Bulletin (Sydney), 5 July 1917, p.

13. The Sun (Sydney), 30 September 1917, p.2

14. Barrier Miner (Broken Hill), 8 June 1917, p.4

References

Gerald Bordman, The Oxford Companion to American Theatre, Oxford University Press, 1984

James Leve, American Musical Theater, Oxford University Press, 2016

Viola Tait, A Family of Brothers: The Taits and J.C. Williamson; a theatre history, Heinemann, Melbourne, 1971

Newspapers

Trove, trove.nla.gov.au

Pictures

National Library of Australia, Canberra

New York Public Library, New York

University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries

With thanks to

Rob Morrison