WS Gilbert

Gilbert and Sullivan in Victoria

In the world of Gilbert and Sullivan 2025 actually marked four notable anniversaries:

• Arthur Sullivan died on the 22 November 1900, 125 years ago
• The Mikado the most popular of the Savoy Operas, premiered on the 14 March 1885, 140 years ago
• But more importantly to us, the first collaboration for Richard D'Oyly Carte happened on the 25March 1875, 150 years ago
• And the Gilbert and Sullivan Society of Victoria was founded on the 28August 1935, 90 years ago

How did it all come about?

Richard D’Oyly Carte

Arthur Sullivan, 1888, by Sir John Everett Millais

An opera singer called Celina Dolaro hired the Royalty Theatre in London to present herself in a variety of operas. She engaged as her manager a young man known as Richard D’Oyly Carte, who was also her agent, with the firm of Rudal Carte and Co.

Theatre-goers in the 19th century liked to get their money’s worth and expected more than one work to be on the program. In addition to the main attraction there would be a curtain raiser and an afterpiece.

It was D’Oyly Carte who reunited Gilbert and Sullivan to create an afterpiece for La Pericole, by Offenbach. (They had previously collaborated on Thespis, or, The Gods Grown Old for John Hollingshead, which was staged at the Gaiety Theatre, London as a Christmas extravaganza in 1871, but afterwards had gone their separate ways, except for a couple of ballads that they wrote: 'The Distant Shore' published in 1874, and ‘Sweethearts’ – inspired by Gilbert’s play of that name – published in 1875).

Most books on G&S say that Carte happened to run into Gilbert and asked him if he were interested in providing something for the theatre. But in fact, Sullivan was engaged first. The programme for the opening of La Pericole on the 30 January states ‘in preparation a New Comic Opera, composed expressly for this theatre by Mr Arthur Sullivan in which Madame Dolaro and Nellie Bromley will appear’. This is the first night programme. You will notice in the cast a certain Frederic Sullivan. D’Oyly Carte had previously worked with him and it may be that though his brother Carte came to know Arthur Sullivan.

Obviously, Carte thought the bill could be improved and brought the composer together with W.S. Gilbert who was making his name as both a dramatist and a librettist. Trial by Jury had begun life as a Bab Ballad. Gilbert regularly contributed comic verses for a magazine called Fun. Trial was one of these.

Gilbert had adapted this into a one-act work for the stage, which he sent to Carl Rosa, who had his own opera company, for Rosa to set for his wife. Unfortunately, that lady died and the manuscript was returned. So, on the request of Carte, Gilbert brought it out and Sullivan was asked to set the work. There was only a matter of weeks before it was finished rehearsed and put on the stage on the 25 March 1875.

Programme for the 1875 season at the Royalty Theatre

At that stage, Sullivan, just 32, was expected to become the beacon of English serious music and through his life he continued to write oratorios, cantatas and works for major music festivals.  He was seduced away to the world of light opera by Carte and we can all be grateful for this.

On Trial’s opening the main attraction was still La Pericole, but with a curtain-raiser called Chryptoconchoidsymphonsamata!

The merit of the work was immediately recognised and Trial soon replaced the work with the unwieldy title in the more prestigious position as curtain-raiser.

It was Carte’s ambition to create a school of English comic opera. He envisioned a number of composers and librettists creating works, which he would produce. Of course, his partnership with Gilbert and Sullivan was so successful that he did not move on to managing a stable of composers and librettists.

It took him two years to raise enough money, to commission the writing of their next work The Sorcerer. And then there were various problems with investors, until he managed to get rid of them and form the triumvirate of manager, composer, librettist to bring the works to the stage.

So, Trial by Jury was the beginning of what must surely be the most successful theatrical partnership in history. They became household names not only throughout Britain but also the USA, Australia and Europe and continued to be so through most of the 20th century.

So, now let us look at how we, in Australia, came to know and love the operas.

Piracy was rife, not on the high seas, but in all forms of artistic enterprise. Copyright laws were not strong enough to prevent works being produced in just about every country, but the most egregiously in America. In 1878, HMS Pinaforetook to the stage in London and very soon after around the world. It created the same style of enormous following that the Beatles did in the 1960s and that Taylor Swift seemed to engender on her recent tour of Australia.

It is said that there were over 100 productions in America, and of course none paid any royalites to Gilbert or Sullivan. Seeing the popularity of these works was an American actor named James Cassius Williamson.

Trial by Jury, 1875

In late 2025, Theatre Heritage Australia, launched a book about George Coppin, the Australian entrepreneur. It was Coppin who was advised by his American agent, that he should engage Williamson and his wife, Maggie Moore, to tour Australia under Coppin’s management and that it would be ‘the most profitable engagement ever made by you and me’. This was in 1873, before the G&S partnership. And what’s more, with something that seems like a premonition of the future, the ship on which they arrived in Australia was the SS Mikado.

The Williamsons arrived in Melbourne in July 1874, on a day they described as ‘cold, wet and miserable’ and opened at the Theatre Royal with the play that had brought them great success in their home country, Struck Oil.

And indeed, they did 'strike oil'. The play achieved a run of 43 nights, which was a record for this city of 110,000 residents. They toured Australia for fifteen successful months and returned to America via India and England.

Three years later, once Pinafore had established itself as a major money maker, Williamson contacted Gilbert and Sullivan and paid for the exclusive right to present the work in Australia. The rights were originally offered to William Lyster but he turned the offer down on the grounds that such a work would not be to the taste of Australians. Wiliamson heard that there were already productions of Pinafore happening here and took legal action.

If you visit Castlemaine, you will hear that HMS Pinafore was the first of the G&S operas to be staged in Australia and this was at their theatre, now a cinema. I asked about this claim when I was there and they are adamant that this is true, but could not give me any details, so we will not give them any credence.

But a firm led by Leon and Kelly was playing the work and so was Horace Linguard, another American who had in the past employed Williamson, and also Hiscock and Hayman. All claimed that English copyright laws did not apply to them, and anyway JCW was still in America and so the pirate performances continued. Williamson engaged lawyers to sue and won the cases, collecting £500 from Leon and Kelly, £200 from Hiscock and Hayman and £300 from Horace Lingard. So before setting foot in Australia he had made a handsome profit, having only paid £300 for the rights.

Struck Oil

Nellie Stewart

A performer in one of these offending productions was Nellie Stewart. She would go on to a most distinguished career and did indeed return to G&S in Australia.

Once he had legally established his exclusive rights he travelled to Australia and then opened his own production, playing the role of Sir Joseph Porter himself with his wife as Josephine. It went brilliantly.

Its huge success encouraged Williamson to negotiate for the rights of the next opera, The Pirates of Penzance, for which he paid £1,000. This time he played the Sargent of Police with an Irish accent, creating a tradition that all following in the role also used the same accent.

From this success, Williamson formed his own Comic Opera Company, later amended to the Royal Comic Opera Company, because his productions were seen at the Theatres Royal in both Sydney and Melbourne.

Although he appeared in the first two of his productions, he did not have a good singing voice. His conductor, Signor Paolo Giorza, said of him ‘he knew only one note and he sing it all the time.’

He did appear on stage after this but most of his time was spent on management. His firm secured the rights to all the G&S operas until the copyright ran out in 1961. It was the foundation of his success and if there was ever a lean spell, another revival of the Savoy operas was created to bring in the money.

In time Williamson’s became the largest performing organisation in the world. Not only did it tour all the large productions from Britian and America throughout Australia, New Zealand and parts of Asia, but they owned theatres in the capital cities and later film and radio studios.

Of course, these antipodean performances created the desire for more involvement with the G&S Operas. By the way, in what we call the ‘inner brotherhood’—a term from Patience, we never say operettas. They are comic operas.

JCW mainly engaged his cast from Australian singers but he also brought out many who had worked in England under the direction of Gilbert. They insisted our productions should be performed as they were at the Savoy and so Australia adopted the revered Tradition of the works from the outset. When The Mikado opened in Melbourne, it was heralded on the cover of the Australasian Sketcher.

Maggie Moore and J.C. Williamson in HMS Pinafore, 1879

Scenes from The Mikado, Australasian Sketcher, 10 March 1886

Some of these artists had the good taste to like this country so much that they stayed on and became Australian household names, starring not only in G&S but also other Williamson works. One of these was Federici, real name Frederic Baker.

Federici's only appearance at the Savoy was as Sir Roderick Murgatroyd in two matinee performances of Ruddigore in February 1887, before going to New York to play the role in D'Oyly Carte's American production of the opera until April. But he toured all round England for many years in the various D'Oyly Carte touring companies. When The Pirates of Penzance premiered in New York, it was essential to secure the British copyright, so a once-only performance of it was done in the Devonshire town of Paignton. Federici was the Pirate King. Later he was the first to play the Mikado in New York. He also played that role in Australia at the Princess Theatre, Melbourne in 1887. He remained here and created another degree of fame for himself. He was cast as Mephistopheles in Faust, which opened at the Princess Theatre. As he sang his last notes and descended through the trap to hell, he suffered a heart attack and died. Nevertheless, the cast all claimed he was on stage with them in the curtain call. There are those who still claim that he can be seen in the theatre and if he is present at a first night, then the show will be a success. There is a plan to celebrate this man with a musical about his life.

As the popularity of the operas grew so did that of those associated with various roles. Just as in England, the comics parts were known as the Grossmith roles, then the Lytton, the Martyn Green, the Peter Pratt and the John Reed roles. So, it was down under. One of the first to establish this was Howard Vernon. In 1881 he played Major General Stanley in The Pirates of Penzance going on to Bunthorne in Patience, the Lord Chancellor in Iolanthe, and here he is as Ko-Ko in The Mikado. 

Howard Vernon (1885)

Autographed title page of Vinia de Loitte's booklet

We know about him mainly from a small book that his second wife, Vinia De Loitte published. There is very little written on G&S history in Australia but De Loitte, also known as the Comtesse de Vilme-Hautmont, published this small booklet covering the productions. It seemed to come out almost every year with updates. I have seen at least half a dozen editions dated in various years to the mid-1930s.

Incidentally, every copy I have seen is autographed, so if you find an unautographed one it may be rare and valuable. She herself joined the Williamson company and among her many appearances was in the Australian premiere of Utopia, Limited, as Princess Kalyba.

Aggie Thorne as Princess Nekaya & Vinia de Loitte as Princess Kalyba in Utopia, Ltd. (1906) 

Ivan Menzies as John Wellington Wells in The Sorcerer (1942)

Although Vernon was greatly acclaimed, he retired to Melbourne and owned a bookshop and when he died his estate was valued at £47.

Another English performer who starred in G&S was C.H. Workman, who performed here with great success. He was invited back to the Savoy, but died at sea off Hong Kong on the way back to Australia following a tour of India and the far East with the JCW G&S Opera Company in 1923. You can find out his history from Theatre Heritage’s own on-line magazine.

Coming into the 20th century, I have met many who think of the G&S performances as represented by Ivan Menzies.

He had been an understudy in the touring D’Oyly Carte companies for a few years, taking over as principal comedian of the "New" Company in July 1925 until its disbandment in June 1927, and had married the lovely soprano Elsie Griffin. He seized the chance to come to Australia when invited to join Williamsons. Here he became a star. Everyone who remembers seeing him from those days has great praise for him, but I have met a number of folk who knew him personally and I have never heard a good word said about him. When he married Elsie, the company was playing in Leeds but they travelled to Sheffield for the wedding. It was his view that before the marriage Elsie, as a single woman, should pay her own train fare there and as her husband, he would pay it on the way back.

Later he joined the Moral Rearmament Movement and a biography of him does seem to have been written to promote that. But I do not have enough knowledge of the organisation to make any relevant comment.

JCW, which I will from now on refer to as ‘The Firm’ regularly revived the operas and took them round not only Australia but New Zealand and parts of Asia. These tours occurred regularly through the teens to the early 1960s.

John Adams as Pish-Tush, Richard Wordsworth as Ko-Ko & Martin Lawrence as Pooh-Bah in the 1962 JCW revival

One revival of the operas came to Melbourne in 1935. To promote it, the Argus newspaper conducted a plebiscite of its readers, asking them to vote for their favourite opera.  For the record The Yeomen of the Guard won, with The Mikadocoming second. This prompted a suggestion that there should be an association for lovers of the operas. A Mr Stewart set the ball rolling by sending a letter to The Age, proposing a G&S Society. This was responded to by a number of people influential in the music world at the time, including Professor Bernard Heinze, Director of Music at the Melbourne Conservatorium. Bernard Manning, one of the old D’Oyly Carters who was now performing with the Firm and Gregory Stroud, another such, gave their support, as did Frank Tait, managing director of J.C. Williamsons. Professor Heinze offered the conservatorium as a meeting place. On 28 August 1935, The Gilbert and Sullivan Society of Victoria officially came into being.

This did cause a little discord. The Old Player and Playgoers Club, had had a similar idea and was setting up a club called The Savoyards. Their president Alfred Peters was not happy to be overtaken by another society and terse letters were exchanged.

Once initiated, the G&S Society met on the third Friday of every month, read through parts of the operas or Gilbert’s plays and sang choruses. After a year of this, they felt ready to produce a full opera which they did on the 24 October. If you pass a Mexican restaurant near the corner of Russell and Bourke Streets, give it a reverential nod—because in 1936 it was the site of the King’s Theatre and the venue of our first season. The Sorcerer was presented with Gilbert’s play Rosencranz and Guildenstern preceding it.

It was reviewed in The Herald. It is difficult to read, but it is a curiosity because it focusses solely on the costumes.

Colourful settings and gay costumes are features of this bright opera.  Violet Jackson wore several attractive frocks, her first appearance was made in a period gown of sage green taffeta made with a wide panier skirt.  Later she wore a lovely frock of white satin which had a full skirt, amply trimmed with frills of gold lace. Dorothy James, who played the part of Lady Sangazure was a decorative figure in a lavender brocade gown embossed with glistening crystal beads and trimmed with silver lace.

The Argus chose to be more constructive:

As the family sorcerer John W. Wells, Paull Fiddian carried off the dramatic honours of the evening. His handling of the patter song was remarkably good … Violet Jackson made an attractive heroine and was well seconded by her adoring Alexis.

Violet Jackson, I may add, our first leading lady, was involved with the Society through the years from the start to the 1980s. She had been a principal with the Firm, but retired when she married. She performed with us for some years and then, she became a director and passed on her knowledge to succeeding generations. Here she is from a 1970s program. I also have a program from our 50th year where she is listed as prompter.

From GSOV program

Suzanne Holden as 'Josephine' in Pinafore

While many of our members went on to a professional career, only one ever rose to the heights of singing with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.  After performing the leading soprano roles in several of our productions, Suzanne Holden auditioned for and won a place with the premiere G&S Company in England, staying with them until they wound up in 1983.  This photo is of her singing Josephine in HMS Pinafore, a role she understudied.

By now of course Williamson himself had moved on to that great green room in the sky and The Firm, still under its old name, had amalgamated with the Taits, a family of four brothers, with Frank Tait at the helm.

The Tait Brothers

Tait had been supportive of the establishment of the G&S Society but now was even more generous. 

The G&S Society then staged the first revival of Utopia, Limited since its professional Australian tour of 1906, for four nights at the King’s Theatre from Wednesday, 6 October 1937 to the following Saturday. The Sun-News Pictorial noted that: “It will be presented by a specially selected cast and chorus of 80, with the University Students’ Orchestra conducted by J. Sutton Crow. The producer is Mr. Lennox Brewer, formerly of J.C. Williamson Ltd.” This followed on from a programme of excerpts from the opera that the Society had presented in the Melba Hall at Melbourne University in late June of that year. The production was subsequently reviewed in the Sun, with emphasis once again given to the costumes rather than the performance itself.

Utopia Opens at King’s Theatre

COLOURFUL settings and gay frocking make bright entertainment of the Savoy opera, Utopia Ltd., presented by the Gilbert and Sullivan Society of Victoria, in association with J. C. Williamson Ltd., in the King’s Theatre last night.

This amusing opera, which takes place over two acts in Utopia, will be presented again tonight, tomorrow and Saturday nights.

Opening in a palm grove, with the blue ocean in the background and tropical foliage on the shore making a glamorous background for the grass skirts, leis and flowers worn by the girls, the action then moves to the throne room in King Paramount’s Palace.

In vivid contrast with the colorfulness of the clothes worn by the island girls are the pure white saris and draped skirts worn by the Princesses Nekaya and Kalyba (Alice Harris and Amanda Neil) and the emerald green velvet frock of the Princess Zara (Dorothy Bendall). This frock is made with a redingote with a scalloped band of gold metal lace at the hem of the full skirt, matching the flounced underskirt and frills edging the elbow-length sleeves. Her hat of matching velvet is trimmed with shaded green plumage.

The Sun News-Pictorial, Thursday, 7 October 1937, page 46

The backing of Williamson’s is also an indication that the production may have reused the original 31 year-old scenery from the opera’s 1906 tour (or at least “equivalent” scenery from its storehouse), in addition to costumes from the JCW Wardrobe Department.

In 1938 the society also mounted a production of The Gondoliers, for which Frank Tait allowed us to use His Majesty’s Theatre as well as JCW's costumes and scenery and orchestra.

Publicity for the production noted there were 100 performers involvced. I am guessing that this must have included the orchestra as fitting 100 people onto the stage, not to mention allowing them to dance on it would have been some feat.

When the copyright lapsed in 1961 there were attempts to mount more modern productions but the public rejected them.

Program for the 1969/1970 season

Dennis Olsen in Patience

Then in 1969, the Elizabethan Theatre Trust, a forerunner of the Australian Opera, mounted four of the operas; Pirates, Iolanthe, HMS Pinafore and The Yeomen of the Guard and toured them round the country. It was cast mainly with opera singers, who were able to act and bring the works to life musically as perhaps they had not been heard for some time. They had a very successful season at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne, and they also created a star. Dennis Olsen was primarily an actor with a good reputation in dramatic roles. He was cast in the patter roles of Major General Stanley, the Lord Chancellor and Sir Joseph Porter and from then on, he was known for his G&S work—although he by no means stopped performing in other genres. The Australian Opera thrived on its revivals of G&S.

Greg Dempsey and members of the Hawthorn Operatic Society

We were not the only company to perform G&S in Melbourne. In the 1970s, when I moved here, there were at least five who regularly put on the operas. Now we have two. The Savoy began its life when members of a Surrey Hills Church Choir formed the Mont Albert Choral Society and then began staging operas under the name of The Youth Operatic Society. By 1952 they were the Hawthorn Operatic Society and one of their members was Greg Dempsey. You may remember him as a principal with the Victoria State Opera and the Australian Opera, but he had previously made a considerable career in England, especially well-known for his roles in Britten’s operas but he began with the Hawthorn Society, and thanks to our THA member, Geoffrey Orr, I can bring you some pictures of his early days on stage. Geoffrey has contributed articles on Demsey to our magazine.

The Hawthorn Society went through more changes of name. A portion of the society preferred to sing G&S while others wanted to move to operetta and opera. That section called themselves the Victorian Light Opera Company which later was the foundation of the Victoria State Opera, of beloved memory. The remaining members christened themselves the Savoy Company. They now exist as a touring group visiting smaller venues round Melbourne and Victoria.

But back to us. We have moved around over the years from school halls to better equipped theatres. We have also taken shows to a number of country venues all round Victoria and twice to England to attend the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival in Buxton, where we presented Patience, Yeomen and The Arcadians. The shows were well received and garnered several awards.  We have even performed on the Polly Woodside with something we called HMS Gilbert and Sullivan and most bizarrely, we took Trial by Jury to Pentridge Prison and the inmates loved it. Of course, it helped that the father of the Plaintiff was a prison governor.

Over the years we have strived to improve our staging, I believe during the war, sacking was used to paint backdrops on. That must have been difficult. Also, our programs have become more sophisticated.

At the end of Diana’s talk, a delightful concert performance of Trial by Jurywas given by members of Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Victoria.

Photo by Robert Wagner 

The Australian Stage.

What it Demands of the Actor, the Author, and the Manager

An Interview with J. C. WILLIAMSON

Her Majesty’s Theatre, Sydney, 1903

IN what I have said of Australian actors I allow for exceptions, of course. But I’m speaking to you frankly, as you asked me; and speaking with all kindness, because a manager in his own interest always wishes to help people on if they’ll give him a chance—and some Australian actors don’t give the manager chance enough. They don’t exhibit the qualities that make a manager say “This fellow is ambitious: he works hard, he takes his present part well—he is taking trouble to fit himself for better parts. That’s the man I want.” Managers in Australia never get enough of that class of Australian actor.

The women are better in that way. They work harder, and they work more persistently. Then they seem quicker and more adaptable. If you think of all the good Australian actresses we’ve had though I needn’t mention any names—you will see my point. They have talent as well as the men, and they stick more closely to their profession. There’s any amount of talent, but often it is not talent that perseveres. And as I’ve said that, I ought to say, too, what good colleagues I’ve found in Australian actors, actresses and singers; what fine support. When they are interested, they don’t spare themselves in their efforts to help, and their natural aptitude is so great that they learn very quickly. What I would like them to do is to maintain their interest and their effort all the time, because my experience teaches me that’s essential. As soon as you let go in our profession, you lose ground.

Augustin Daly

New York Public Library, New York

J.C. Williamson, c.1908

Advice to Players

Let me show you in one of my old scrapbooks a notice which I have always treasured and many times referred to with pride when thinking over old times. It was written by Augustin Daly over 41 years ago, when he was one of the leading dramatic critics on the New York press. He afterwards became, as you know, America’s leading manager, and succeeded to the position formerly occupied by the Wallacks.

[This is portion of the article referred to by Mr. Williamson.]

Room for the Little People of the Stage! Make way there! and let us bow in the third and fourth rate actors, who, as “lords,” “gentlemen,” “Marcellus and Bernardo” or “Catesby” and the “Lieutenant of the Tower” have so often in their turn bowed in the Star of the evening.

The first-rate actors have their chroniclers; the second-rate actresses have their flatterers; who shall be the historians of the neglected ones of the lower grade? Shall we not lift them from the small notoriety of their favourite porter-house, and make them proud of something more than the awful admiration of little dirty boys along the street?

Is not the “utility man” worthy of honourable mention beside his distinguished co-labourers on the stage.

Let us see.

In the first place, the position of the fourth-rate actor demands of him the following qualities: Great versatility—for he must be one night a comedian of the old school, then a gay fellow of the genteeler comedy, then a noble patriot of the ante-Christian era, then a respectable tragedian of the modern period, then a howling bandit in a cavern, then an innocent rustic in a smock, then a belaced courtier of the Shakspearian drama, and then a red-shirted creature of the sensational.

Great application—for he must study hundreds of new parts in the course of the year;

Great patience—for he must wait and wait and bide his time for advancement through many weary seasons;

Great hopefulness—for he must never despair;

Great amiability—for he must endure the insults of stars and the jeers of his equals.

In fact—it requires more real ability to be a fourth-rate actor with his ceaseless and unnoticed labours, than to be a distinguished star who has half-a dozen stage pieces which he enacts all the year round, and who sees his name constantly mentioned in the papers.

It is a matter of congratulation that we are now having a better class of people in the humbler roles. If every stage only had a competent manager, to assist in developing the young talents, many famous actors might be made of the staff at present under command.

As it is, Mr. Williamson, of Wallack’s company, Mr. Burrows, of the Winter Garden, and Mr. Rockwell, of the Olympic, promise (if their modesty continues) to be actors of no mean order five years hence. But Mr. Williamson will be better than them all—not because he is more ambitious—but because he is more attentive and less vain!

Will the little people of the drama take some brief advice?

Give as much time to your dressing as a great actor gives to his. When Florence, the comedian, was a utility man, he used to make his own dresses and wigs for every little part he played—in order to look the character he was cast for. Florence was only a poor boy too, and had to stint himself to do it.

Never be ashamed, when on the stage in the presence of a “star,” to speak your lines with the emphasis you shall have studied in your own chamber.

Do not spend your leisure in idleness with those on whose level you now are, but retire early to your homes and study for a higher position.

Do not criticise the actor above you in the discontented circles of the green room, but try and learn from him how to be as good or as great as he. Fleury, the greatest of French comedians, when in his glory under the Empire, one night consented to play a part of but one scene, and in which he had but five words to speak. It was that of an insignificant old seigneur, to whom an appeal is made by a poor woman whose husband upon their wedding day is under arrest. Fleury seemed to listen to her at first, with the indifference with which a nobIeman usually receives the applications of such rude and ignorant peasants as she pretended to be; then all at once struck with the dignity of her manner and sentiments he fixed his eyes upon her, and while continuing to listen, as if by instinctive, almost involuntary movement, his hand was raised by degrees to his hat, which he finally raised from his head and lowered before her as if mechanically. When the wife was done speaking the old man was in the attitude of most respectful obeisance. The pantomime was so true, so delicate—it expressed so naturally the feeling of respect and surprise at finding the woman so superior to what she seemed, that the effect was electrical, and Fleury, who had not spoken a single word, was greeted with the most tumultuous applause.

A poor devil of an actor, who usually took the part, could not understand this at all: “Only see,” said he, “what prejudice does. Fleury got three rounds of applause just for taking off his hat; and I never got any applause in the part—and yet I never move my hat at all.”

But this is one thing the Little People must learn, above all, and remember—that if actors deserve it the public will reward them whether they are “stars” or not.

Always ask yourself what such or such a character would be apt to do in real life and govern yourself accordingly—never forgetting that in real life the simple message of a servant conveying important news is always as impressive as the circumstances justify. 

When a servant says: “Sir, your carriage is waiting”—he will, of course, do so in a business-like way. But should he have to announce: “Sir, your son is dead”—in real life, he would undoubtedly exhibit as much real concern in face and voice as the person whom he informs would be likely to feel. This simple illustration presents the case. Know the object of what you have to say, and ordinary discretion will suggest the mode of saying it.

Since we have no school of acting whence professionals may graduate, every humble performer must make his closet his college and tutor himself. With his looking-glass, his book, and a good deal of diligent observation and thought, every actor may be an artist, but it is equally certain that with foolish company, and discontented mind and disordered life—every drudge will remain such to his dying day.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

I think those remarks are well worth a young actor’s study.

Australian children are wonderfully gifted. There are no brighter children on the stage to he found anywhere. Go and see the children dancing in the Pantomime now: it’s a pleasure to watch how well and heartily they do it.

Australian Drama

About Australian drama? Room for it? Of course there is room for it. Hundreds, I might almost say thousands, of plays have been submitted to me, but the authors are either too literary, or they forget the prime requisites of a play. What are those? Well, a good play must have heart interest. It must hit the audience below the collar button. And it must have head: it must have a good plot, and not be intellectually below contempt. And in the third place it must admit of an appeal to the eye. Perhaps I should have put these qualities in the reverse order. The audience has first to be pleased through the eye; then it must have the appeal to the heart; and then there should be sufficient plot, sufficient intelligence, to leave a pleasant after-taste in memory.

If you look over all the plays that have been great successes, right from the very beginning, you will find they all have these qualities. There must be the love interest, there must be the plot, and the language must not be above the heads of the average playgoer. People go to the theatre as a distraction, as an amusement, as a relaxation after the toil of the day, so that they can drop their burdens and forget their troubles for a little while. They do not go to be instructed, or to be puzzled, or to be bored—and being human beings, the same human qualities appeal to them generation after generation. Take any play that has been a striking success—take The Silver King. That shows you what I mean. We can revive that play time after time, and always to good audiences. It has the love interest, it has the plot, and it is not a stupid play—though it does not profess to deal in problems. There is the child interest in it which always appeals to an audience, and it admits of being well staged so that it attracts the eye.

Where Local Drama Fails

So far Australian drama has failed to give us these things, or to put them in the right way. Certainly an Australian play could be made like In Mizzoura, but not so well,  because in Australia the types have not crystallised yet. America has been longer settled, and the Dutchman, the Negro, the Yankee, the Irishman, have all become well-known types of national life. In Australia it is not so. There is a bushman, of course, but he is not so definite a type as those I have mentioned, and he is not comparatively so interesting to a city audience.

Struck Oil is another play of the kind I mean. There is the old father—simple, honest, shrewd and kindly, and his happy laughing daughter. You see them together—father and child. The man goes away to the war, and Deacon Skinner comes in—the villain of the piece—the same old villain that you find in a hundred pieces. There seems to be nothing extraordinary in the story, yet that play always holds the audience, because it is sincere, because it is human, because it is true. Those are the keynotes of the play that lasts—humanity, sincerity, truth.

Of course there have been some fair Australian plays. Alfred Dampier did well with His Natural Life and Robbery Under Arms; and those are typical Australian plays. Very good in their way, no doubt, and in a sense representative. The fault I find with them is that they always bring in the revolver. That is always introduced when the dramatist gets in a difficulty. There is the bushranger, the heroine, and the villain, and they get along all right up to a certain point—then somebody must be shot in order to clear the air and let the play proceed. That seems to me to show a certain poverty of invention. A play should go easily and naturally, and nothing outrageous should occur in it. I suppose in convict and bushranging days the revolver episode was the natural thing; but it isn’t the natural thing now, and I don’t see why it should be so characteristic of the Australian drama we have. The Sunny South was another very good play of George Darrell’s—his best, I think. That was Australian; and there again—he had to use the revolver.

George Darrell. Photo by J.W. Lindt.

National Library of Australia, Canberra

Alfred Dampier, c.1875

State Library Victoria, Melbourne

A scene from the Alfred Dampier and Garnet Walch play Robbery Under Arms at Her Majesty’s Theatre, Sydney (1890). National Library of Australia, Canberra.

The Way to Write a Play

Well, your authors have got to write better before they will make a really successful play. The way seems obvious, and yet they don’t manage it. Authors bring plays to me: I have taken lots of trouble with some of them; and I’ve pointed out this thing and that which my experience tells me must be altered. They always profess themselves quite ready to alter and improve—always glad of suggestions, and so on—but somehow they don’t carry out the suggestions. They take the play away and bring it back, revised, but the faults are there just as before. It almost seems as if it wanted two men to write an Australian play, one to create it, and another to put it into shape for the stage. In the case of The Silver King the two authors had the valuable assistance of the technical knowledge and stagecraft of Wilson Barrett.

Perhaps that is why so many journalists fail. Their ideas are good enough, their language is good enough—sometimes a little bit too good—but it isn’t the kind that tells on the stage, and they don’t get the situations right. Then, they don’t seem to me to take enough trouble at the beginning. Now, I have had good authors under contract to me to write plays—Dion Boucicault and W.S. Gilbert, for example—and I know something of the way they set about it. I was particularly impressed with the trouble Gilbert took with his scenario: it was almost as long as the play. He wrote the scenario first to get his general effect, his main points, and his leading situations; and he spared no pains to put everything in the exact place where it was wanted for stage representation. It was only after he had made a scenario that would act that he set to work and wrote the play, filling in the language, creating the characters, and polishing every line until, in any play of Gilbert’s, you will find there is very little that can be dispensed with—very little indeed that can be cut with advantage. The reason is, as I say, that he has his careful scenario behind his language: his play is built before it  is decorated.

W.S. Gilbert, 1890. Photo by Herbert Rose Barraud.

National Portrait Gallery, London

Dion Boucicault

New York Public Library, New York

Words and Plot

A drama may be literature, but the words are not the essential thing about it. The essential thing is that it should live and move like a piece of real life—and that depends on the construction. Words are only the clothes, the dress of the drama itself. Struck Oil, for example, was in a great measure written upon the stage, as you might say. My part wasn’t even committed to paper until we had taken it all round Australia. We used what we call a skeleton manuscript, with only the cues given, and one night a good phrase would occur, another night we would invent a little bit of business, and so on, until the whole thing was different from the play as conceived by the original writer. But, mind you, behind the whole there was always the living interest—the heart-interest that I have spoken of. That must be the basis of a really successful play: that is what gives it vitality. Then the play must be built so that this interest can be effectively displayed, and last of all you drape it with words to interpret the interest and construction to the audience.

Australian authors usually seem to go the other way about. They write the words, and as long as the thing makes a continuous story, and the language is good, they seem to think the play looks right. But all they do in most cases is to dress a lay figure. You have to start from the other end—start from human emotions, human instincts, and base your plot on them, and only when you’re sure you have the play, and the interest of the play, and the construction of the play, go on to the language. In real living drama the language is the last thing to think about.

The First Act

Another thing about a play is that when you get a good one it goes of itself, it unfolds itself. I agree that the last act should always be the strongest: too much strength in the first act is a mistake—because you can't live up to it. I remember a very interesting example of that in a New York theatre. There was a play of Dion Boucicault’s—I think it was The Shenandoah. The first act simply amazed the audience—they couldn’t contain themselves. They applauded and applauded. The stage manager came round to Boucicault in a great state of excitement. “We've got them this time, Mr. Boucicault.” “No,” says Boucicault, “no.” “What?” said the other fellow. “What? Don’t you hear that applause?” “No,” says Boucicault, “we’re done. The play’s a failure. That first act is too strong.” And it turned out exactly as he said. The play could not live up to the first act, and it never succeeded. That shows you how stage experience and stage insight come in. Of course the elder Boucicault was a very clever man, one of the very cleverest men that have been connected with the modern stage. He was a great author, he was a great actor, and he was a great stage manager—a man with great ideas.

It is always difficult to foretell the success or failure of a play from the first act, and when I am telegraphing to my partners after the first act of a first performance I am always very careful to add some qualifying words. Sometimes the first act appears to go very well indeed, but you can’t trust it. In order to be quite sure, you have to wait. There is something in the attitude of an audience that tells you things are going right, or they are not going right—some magnetism, quite apart from the obvious signs. I mean by obvious signs, for example, an audience coughing, or things like that. When you hear a few little coughs, that clearing of the throat, you have to pay attention: something’s going wrong.

The play’s not holding the attention of the audience. The man in the chair has lost interest, and as soon as he ceases to be absorbed with the stage he turns his head away and gives that little cough—the manager’s danger-signal.

The Verdict of the Audience

A very curious thing is the way in which intelligence about a play is communicated. You produce a play on Saturday night. Everything appears to go well, and yet you’re not convinced. The audience separate and go away, and then—the fate of the play is settled between Saturday night and Monday night. Perhaps you get flourishing notices in the papers on Monday morning, after a first-rate house on Saturday night, and yet Monday morning’s booking falls off, and Monday night’s house drops to half, and the play does not run. It has failed to hit them, somehow.  The people settle it going home in the trams, or when they meet on Sunday: I don't know how. Time and again that has happened. A successful Saturday night; first-rate press notices on Monday; and on Monday night—the audience missing! They’ve given their verdict going home in the trams, and the air has carried it like microbes.

Charles Warner, 1891. Photo by Walery.

National Portrait Gallery, London

The Centennial Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 10, May 1889, p.699

National Library of Australia, Canberra

Captain Swift was a case like that. We opened in Captain Swift at the Theatre Royal in Sydney. It seemed a good play, with popular Charles Warner in the title role; it had a splendid reception, got splendid notices in the papers; and yet there was a poor house on Monday night, and it only ran a fortnight. In England a manager has time to recast and re-model his plays, and so he can convert a failure into a success. Several of George Edwardes’ musical comedies have been first-night failures. The audience simply wouldn’t stand them—but he has improved them night by night, and turned them into successes. In Australia we can’t do that, because the average run of a piece doesn’t give us time. In London people keep on going to the house, and there is population enough to give the manager a chance at mending. 

English and Australian Audiences

Perhaps English audiences are creatures of habit to a greater extent than Australian. They get used to an actor; they get used to a theatre; and as long as that actor and that theatre are above ground they will never leave them if they can help it. The Australian audience wants the actor and the theatre to justify themselves every time. If an actor fails in a new part, it doesn’t matter how often he’s succeeded before; if a new piece fails, it doesn’t matter how many other pieces have succeeded before: the audience stay away until the actor or the theatre offers them something better. Australian audiences are hard to please in that way. They’ve been used to the best things, and they want the best things all the time.

You may be sure that sooner or later an Australian author will make a good play on the lines I’ve suggested, and if it is good the Australian audience will soon let him know. You can trust their judgment, you can trust their appreciation. I have mentioned two or three Australian plays; we have had one or two good musical dramas like Tapu, with bright, original music; and I think that our pantomimes, such as Djin-Djin and Matsa, will bear comparison with anything of the kind done anywhere. And in Parsifal, just now, you have a successful play that’s made right on the Australian premises—our own scenery, our own scenic artists, our own costumes, as well as our own play. The whole thing is done here. In London it is quite different.  A theatrical manager sends for his costumes to one place, for his scenery to another, and so on. I don’t suppose there is a London theatre that employs a permanent staff of scenic artists. Here we have to do everything, as I say, on the premises.

Illustration by Will R. Barnes, 1895

State Library Victoria, Melbourne

Illustration by Will R. Barnes, 1896

State Library Victoria, Melbourne

Australian audiences are in many ways the best in the world. They are most difficult to please, for the reason that they have been accustomed to nothing but the best. Almost every play is tried in London or New York before it is staged here, and you never see the failures. You get scenery and costumes as good as London’s, and you get the most attractive plays. So audiences have naturally a high standard, and when a manager falls below that standard they are apt to complain. On the other hand, when they are pleased they support you well. They are very intelligent, very responsive, and very ready to excuse accidental shortcomings. When they do not like a play they do not hiss or make a row, they simply stay away—and they stay away with very great unanimity.

An Actor and His Part

When the Australian audience likes you their applause is very genuine. It’s a great thing to feel that you have an audience in your hands, and that their emotions respond directly to those you are portraying. The part I myself like best is the part which gives you an opportunity to make an audience cry one minute and laugh the next. “John Stofel” is such a part, and “Rip Van Winkle.” The scene where the old man is trying to recall himself to his daughter’s memory, I have always considered a test of the strength of my acting. I’ve never failed in that part to make the actress who was taking the daughter’s part cry—really cry. Never but once—the exception was a woman who paid no attention at all: she might just as well have been eating lollies. She wasn’t really concentrating her attention on the business of the piece. So I said to her one day, “Why don’t you wake up and listen to what is going on? Surely you have feelings: surely you understand the scene?” After that she did pay a little more attention, and she did feel the pathos. Before she had been letting the mind wander, with the result that I could not touch her at all.

An actor, I think, must keep control of himself, he must not let himself, as people say, be “carried away by the part,” for the result is that he ceases to play the part. He is merely himself. But you can feel a part intensely, and still remain in full possession of your faculties. You can realise the way the thing is going, and watch it, and decide how it shall go. To lose control so far that you forget you are on the stage at all—well, I doubt if it ever happens; and if it did happen, I should think the actor had made a mistake. He is there to act the part and if he forgets that he forgets the reason of his presence on the stage.

Stage Aspirants and “Twang”

One thing I do not like to notice, and it is a thing I have remarked about before: that is the twang that so many Australian children are growing up with. To my mind it is the result of simple carelessness. The children are not taught at school or at home to speak with the proper intonation. At the school, of course, the teachers may be as bad as the scholars. I think parents are at fault for not correcting their children in the home; I think teachers are at fault for not correcting the children in the school; and I think the Government is at fault for not correcting the teachers—for not saying that the first qualification of the teacher should be that he can speak correctly the language he is using. Government should insist that teachers are properly trained before they become teachers at all.

I hear this twang, of course, very frequently in the girls that come to me and offer to sing or act. So many of them have charming voices and excellent qualifications otherwise, if they would only speak correctly. Many, I am sorry to say, have no qualifications at all; and I think that girls who are aiming at a stage career should at the very outset of their training see somebody who would tell them this—somebody who would be able to say decisively that their voice, or their age, or their appearance disqualifies them for the stage. That would save many of them from wasting years at work which they ought never to have undertaken.

Some Old Parts

My favourite part—well, I can’t tell you that—I've succeeded in many. “John Stofel” in Struck Oil was a very good part, of course; and that part of “Sim” in Wild Oats was very popular in its day. Then I loved to play “Dick Swiveller,” “Kerry,” “Rip Van Winkle,” and lots of other parts which blended pathos and comedy. I can remember the first big round of applause I ever got—it was when as a boy of sixteen I took the part of “Ross” in Macbeth, and was applauded for the lines of Ross’s reply to Macduff: “Stands Scotland where it did?”

          Alas! poor country;
Almost afraid to know itself. It cannot
Be call’d our mother, but our grave; where nothing,
But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile;
Where sighs and groans and shrieks that rent the air
Are made, not mark’d; where violent sorrow seems
A modern ecstasy; the dead men’s knell
Is there scarce ask’d for who; and good men’s lives
Expire before the flowers in their caps,
Dying or ere they sicken.

That seems a very long time ago now, and indeed it is a long time since I thought about these things at all. Theatrical management keeps you too busy for personal recollections. It’s not alone keeping the companies going—though that is no light task in itself—but sometimes I have to take part in stage management. In Parsifal, for example, I staged the play and invented things as I went along. Then there is the continual labour of keeping in touch in order to be up to date. Weekly letters come from our agents in London and New York telling us what is going on there, and these have to be carefully considered. You have to keep an eye open for new men—for rising talent both in the field of authors and in the acting field. You have to see not only that the whole machine works, but that every part of it works so well that there is the least possible friction.

Act 1 scene 1 from Parsifal—Summit of the Grail Mount (scenery by W.R. Coleman). The old King of the Holy Grail, Titurel, blesses his son Amfortas as he sets out, armed with the Sacred Spear to attack the castle of the sorcerer Klingsor. State Library of New South Wales, Sydney.

A Manager’s Responsibility

And then you keep a general lookout on what’s going on around you. Often I come home from my office and bring my work with me, and my secretary to deal with a heap of correspondence that can’t be crammed into the day; and then, maybe, it’s necessary to sit up till two or three in the morning reading plays, or looking over the English and American dramatic papers, so as to miss nothing that will be of service. It requires constant watchfulness to keep you from falling behind and I think I can say that I am well abreast of everything that is doing in the theatrical world. But the labour it involves!—in addition to the responsibility and worry. That is what has made me ask myself frequently of late what am I getting out of it all.

Here I am at 61, still straining at the collar. Well, I haven’t many more years to play with, and I ask myself should I not try and get a little leisure. There is no such thing as leisure in management; the responsibility is always with you. And I think not only of myself, but of my wife and children. I would like to give my children the chances which I have often regretted missing for myself. My little girl Marjorie, for example, whose picture by Longstaff you see over yonder—will soon be of an age to travel, and I should like her to see the best pictures, hear the best music, read the best books, attend the best theatres, and meet bright, clever people. That, I think, is the best education a girl can have, and she should have it in her youth when her mind is receptive.

And while my children are growing up, I want to be with them. To me it is the greatest pleasure in life to be in the company of children. My other little girl had a birthday party in Melbourne the other day; she was four years old: so all her little friends came to luncheon, and afterwards they went along to the theatre to see Mother Goose—there happened to be a matinee performance; and I tell you the day I spent with them, watching them enjoy themselves so heartily, was one of the pleasantest I can remember. There happened to be a lot of little girls from the Orphan Asylum up in the gallery; and it was good to watch them too.

JCW with his wife, Mary and youngest daughter, Viola in the drawing room of their home ‘Tudor’ at Elizabeth Bay, Sydney in 1907. The portrait by Longstaff of Marjorie is to the right.

Harry Phydora as ‘Mother Goose’, 1907

National Library of Australia, Canberra

Personal Plans

So I should like to take my family and go away for a long trip, entirely free from care and worry. But the time is not yet come: for my business engagements have still some years to run. I am going to try and slacken the strain gradually. Next week, for example, I am going to New Zealand. I took a company through New Zealand twenty-five years ago; but since then I have not been back except on hurried visits, so I am going to renew my acquaintance with the country under its changed and improved conditions, and I shall spend some time in visiting all the leading towns. The New Zealand public always treat my companies splendidly. I shall keep in touch, of course, with my partners, who already relieve me of a great deal of the strain of management, but I shall try to make my visit as much of a holiday as possible. Perhaps later on I shall take a long trip to Europe, giving myself more leisure than I have previously had, and devoting my attention rather to securing new material, new plays and new actors, than to the direct business of management. So possibly I shall be able to slacken off work by degrees.

I’m not complaining; I’m explaining. In many ways I’m a fortunate man. I am deeply and sincerely grateful to the friends, and partners, and actors and actresses, and other assistants, who have made my success possible; and I am especially grateful to the Australian people, who have given me so warm a welcome and have made me one of themselves. As I told you, I’m still an American, for I don’t think a man should disown the country he was born in. But I’m Australian too, and when I have had the long holiday that I feel is necessary to my family and myself, this is the country I’m coming back to; this is the country where I want to live and die.

THE BOOKFELLOW, 31 January 1907, pp.14–17

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Endnotes

Compiled by Robert Morrison

Plays mentioned in the article:

In Mizzoura—4 act comedy-drama by Augustus Thomas premiered at Hooley’s Theatre, Chicago on 7 August 1893; written as a star vehicle for American comedian, Nat Goodwin who played in its Australian premiere at the Princess’s Theatre, Melbourne on 1 August 1896 for a 1 week season and subsequently on tour amongst his repertoire of plays.

For the Term of His Natural Life—Drama in 6 tableaux and a prologue by Thomas Somers (pseud. of Thomas Walker) and Alfred Dampier, based on Marcus Clarke’s novel His Natural Life (1874) premiered at the Royal Standard Theatre in Sydney on 5 June 1886 and played for an initial 42 performances. The play was subsequently revised by Walker and Dampier and produced at Her Majesty’s Theatre, Sydney on 30 November 1895 for an initial 19 performances.

Robbery Under Arms—5 act drama by Alfred Dampier and Garnet Walch, founded on Rolf Boldrewood’s novel (of 1888) premiered at the Alexandra Theatre, Melbourne on 1 March 1890 and ran for an initial 42 performances.

The Sunny South—5 act drama by George Darrell premiered at the Opera House, Melbourne on 31 March 1883 for an initial season of 36 performances.

Struck Oil; or, The Pennsylvania Dutchman—3 act comedy-drama, based on the unproduced play The German Recruit by Sam W. Smith, adapted and expanded by Clay Greene as The Deed, or Five Years Away; subsequently retitled with further revisions by J.C. Williamson, premiered at Salt Lake City, Utah on 23 February 1874 and received its Australian premiere at the Theatre Royal, Melbourne on 1 August 1874 for an initial 43 performances. This was followed by a return season of a further 13 performances commencing on Derby Day, 31 October and “every night during the Great Cup Week” concluding on 14 November. The play was then given a “Farewell Performance” as a Complimentary Benefit for the Williamsons on the final night of their Melbourne season on 21 December 1874, resulting in a record tally of 57 performances. (The original 1874 orchestra parts for the incidental music for Struck Oil remain extant in the “J.C. Williamson collection of performance materials” archived at the National Library of Australia in Canberra—see https://trove.nla.gov.au/version/23704496)

The Shenandoah—no play of that title is listed amongst the works of Dion Boucicault, however JCW may have been referring to Boucicault’s Belle Lamar, a play based on an episode of the American Civil War set in the Shenandoah Valley in the Spring of 1862, which opened at Booth’s Theatre, New York on 10 August 1874, and, failing to live up to audience expectations, closed on 13 September after a limited run of 34 performances. Although JCW was performing in Melbourne at the time and did not witness the play at first hand, he would have subsequently heard the anecdote about its failure at a later date, possibly from Boucicault himself.

The Silver King—5 act drama by Henry Arthur Jones and Henry Herman premiered at the Princess’s Theatre, London on 16 November 1882 and received its Australian premiere at the Theatre Royal, Melbourne on 27 October 1883 for an initial run of 49 performances. (The biographical Life and Letters of Henry Arthur Jones by his daughter, Doris Arthur Jones [Victor Gollancz, London: 1930] quoted Jones with regard to the play’s authorship: “Herman gave me the end of the second act, but he never wrote a line of it.”) Its popularity was such that it was regularly revived in Australia up to the late 1920s.

Captain Swift—4 act comedy-drama by Australian playwright, Charles Haddon Chambers premiered at the Haymarket Theatre, London on 20 June 1888 and received its Australian premiere at the Theatre Royal, Sydney on 16 February 1889 for a run of 12 performances. (In the original published text of his article JCW erroneously stated that the play had opened at the Princess’s in Melbourne, but this has been amended in the present transcription. The play was not included amongst Charles Warner’s repertoire during his prior Melbourne season at the Princess's Theatre from 31 March to 14 June 1888 and was only added during his later Sydney season at the Theatre Royal, after it had achieved success in London in Beerbohm Tree’s production.)  (See also “The Idiosyncrasies of the Australian Play-goer” by Gerald Marr Thompson in The Centennial Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 10; May 1889, p.699—https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-3083699840/view?sectionId=nla.obj-3089613560)

Tapu; or, A Tale of a Maori Pah—2 act comic opera with a book by Arthur H. Adams and music by Alfred Hill premiered at the Opera House in Wellington, New Zealand on 16 February 1903 for a season of 6 performances and received its Australian premiere at Her Majesty’s Theatre, Sydney on 9 July 1904 for an initial run of 19 performances. (The original orchestra parts for Tapu remain extant in the “J.C. Williamson collection of performance materials” archived at the National Library of Australia in Canberra—see https://trove.nla.gov.au/version/15801772)

Djin-Djin: The Japanese Bogie Man—pantomime by Bert Royle and J.C. Williamson, with music by Leon Caron and additional numbers by H.J. Pack, premiered at the Princess’s Theatre, Melbourne on 26 December 1895 for a seven-week season. (The original orchestra parts for Djin-Djinremain extant in the “J.C. Williamson collection of performance materials” archived at the National Library of Australia in Canberra—see https://trove.nla.gov.au/version/21824012 ; the published script is also available to read on-line from State Library Victoria at https://viewer.slv.vic.gov.au/?entity=IE6980073&file=FL19756886&mode=browse)

Matsa: Queen of Fire—pantomime by Bert Royle and J.C. Williamson, with music by Leon Caron and George Pack, premiered at the Princess’s Theatre, Melbourne on 26 December 1896 for a seven week season. (The published script is available to read on-line from State Library Victoria at https://viewer.slv.vic.gov.au/?entity=IE4122792&mode=browse)

Parsifal; or, The Redemption of Kundry—4 act drama by Rev. Thomas Hilhouse Taylor premiered at Her Majesty’s Theatre, Sydney on 22 December 1906 for an initial season of 51 performances. (Incidental music selected, arranged and composed by Christian Hellemann, and included the Prelude to Wagner’s opera.)

J.C. Williamson’s favourite parts included:

“John Stofel” in Struck Oil (see play details above).

“Sim” in Wild Oats—a comedy in 5 acts by John O’Keefe (which premiered in London at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden on 16 April 1791), was first played by JCW for a season at Wallack’s Theatre, New York which commenced on 20 December 1869.

“Dick Swiveller” in Little Nell and the Marchioness—a 4 act drama by John Brougham (“Partly adapted from the principal incidents of Charles Dicken’s The Old Curiosity Shop”), was first played by JCW for a season at Wallack’s Theatre, New York from 15 August 1867 opposite Lotta Crabtree in the dual title roles. He subsequently reprised the role for a two week season at the Theatre Royal, Melbourne, which commenced on 17 October 1874, in which JCW’s first wife, Maggie Moore played the dual roles of “Little Nell” and “The Marchioness”, and her brother, James Moore made his Australian debut.

“Kerry” in Kerry; or Night and Morning—a one-act play by Dion Boucicault, in which the title role was apparently first played by JCW at the Theatre Royal, Melbourne during a four week season, firstly as a curtain-raiser to Uncle Tom’s Cabin— “an emotional drama in 3 acts founded upon incidents connected with the world-read novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe” (in which JCW played the title role and Maggie played “Topsy”) from 21 September 1874 and again as a curtain-raiser to The Fairy Circle; or O’Carolan’s Dream— “a romantic and legendary drama” in 3 acts by H.P. Grattan (in which JCW played “Con O’Carolan” and Maggie played his wife “Molshee”) which commenced on 3 October 1874.

“Rip Van Winkle” in Rip Van Winkle—a 3 act drama by Joseph Jefferson (based on the story by Washington Irving) first performed by Jefferson at Washington D.C. in the U.S. in 1859 and in Australia at the Royal Victoria Theatre, Sydney on 3 February 1862, and subsequently revised by Dion Boucicault for a production at the Haymarket Theatre, London, starring Jefferson, which premiered on 4 September 1865. JCW first played the title role in the Australian premiere of Boucicault’s revised version for a two-week season at the Theatre Royal, Melbourne, which commenced on 30 November 1874. Maggie Moore was suffering from a severe cold at the time, so in order to give her a rest from performing, he hurriedly learned the role in three days and played it for the first time the following Monday. He subsequently wrote in a letter (dated 12 December 1874) to his actor friend, Henry Edwards in San Francisco: “I achieved a complete success the first night, and greatly improved upon it afterward, the press were unanimous in their praise. We played it two weeks.”    

Theatre Royal, Melbourne, 1877. Photo by N.J. Caire.

State Library Victoria, Melbourne

Maggie Moore & JCW, c.1874. Photo by Bardwell, Ballarat.

National Library of Australia, Canberra

Additional Sources

Eric Irvin, Dictionary of the Australian Theatre 1788–1914 (Hale & Iremonger, Sydney:1985)

Ian G. Dicker, J.C.W. —A Short Biography of James Cassius Williamson[The Elizabeth Tudor Press, NSW: 1974]

Lynn Earl Orr, Dion Boucicault and the Nineteenth Century Theatre: A Biography [Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College: 1953]

The New York Times

The Argus (Melbourne)

Postscript

An insight into the financial aspects of The Firm and the scale of its operations in Australia and New Zealand in the era in which J.C. Williamson was interviewed is provided by the following newspaper article published in 1906.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

DRAMA AS AN INDUSTRY

MR. J. C. WILLIAMSON’S ENTERPRISES.

SALARY LIST OVER £100,000.

The relation of the stage to literature, to public morals, to the church are subjects of frequent discussion and controversy. Its relation to the industrial life of the community is never considered. The economist and the statist who delve fearlessly into almost all sorts and conditions of life and occupation, hang back from the stage door, as nervous as the youth with his first billet doux. All the same, the stage is a considerable factor in industry, and even in a population relatively small, like that of Australia, the magnitude and extent of its operations are unguessed by most of those who are excellently acquainted with it from the front of the house.

The various companies now controlled by the firm of Messrs. Williamson, Tallis and Ramaciotti include no fewer than 650 persons on the permanent staff. Of these 187 are actors or actresses, 83 musicians, and 52 mechanists and stage hands; while what might be termed the “headquarters staff” —to which falls the task of supervising the whole of this vast enterprise through the managers of the various departments—numbers 12. In addition to these persons, there is a large “floating” staff, consisting of the supers and assistants picked up at the cities as they are reached by the different theatrical companies. Although, of course, only casually employed, those who draw salary in the course of a year in this way must number nearly as many as the regular members of companies.  Indirectly there are a host of persons who derive work and wages from the enterprises. In fact it is only necessary to consider the immense figures supplied yesterday by Mr. J.C. Williamson to realise how much of the shilling which the playgoer pays for his amphitheatre seat is distributed again in wages to a multitude of trades. When the money has reached the treasury of the theatre the cue has come for “Enter Omnes.”

In salaries and wages, Mr Williamson paid away during the year 1905 no less than £110,183 [approx. equivalent to $17,435,832 in today’s currency], the greater part going to Australians. The printing and advertising cost £22,469 [$3,555,591]. The columns of advertisements published throughout Australia and New Zealand, placed end to end, would reach over two miles [approx. 3.2 km]; while the posters and bills exhibited on hoardings or walls, covered an area just under three acres [approx.1.2 hectares].

The rent bill amounted to £19,428 [$3,074,370], and the cost of lighting was £9,783 [$1,548,104]. Scenery cost no less than £10,593 [$1,676,282], 14 square miles [approx. 22.5 square km] of new canvas and 9½ miles [approx.15.3 km] of new timber having been used.  Even these immense figures do not represent all the raw material which was transmuted into landscapes and architecture, for nearly as much old canvas and timber again was repainted, and made available for stage presentation. Nearly the whole of the money spent under this head is distributed in Australia. There is a complete staff of scenic artists and assistants at both Melbourne and Sydney. The same system is followed in respect to the properties, which, inclusive of furniture and furnishings, absorbed £6,627 [$1,048,685]; and the costumes, in which the year’s expenditure was £5,390 [$852,937]. The employees in the costume department and wardrobe stores work without cessation all the year round.  Whether a big production is approaching makes but little difference to them. There is always something to do, and in the storerooms the strenuous life is discovered. In Sydney the whole of a building, formerly used as a skating rink, is used to store surplus wardrobe. The floor space is covered with hundreds of huge baskets, and day after day the contents of these are taken out and sorted, brushed, exposed to air and sunlight, and repacked with a fresh supply of preventives against the ravages of moths. In this store the costumes are the accumulation of 25 years of management, dating back to the time when the firm of Williamson, Garner, and Musgrove dominated the Australian stage. Added to the costumes purchased by this firm are those obtained during the periods when Mr. Williamson and Garner were in partnership, when Mr. Williamson controlled the enterprise alone, when Mr. Musgrove joined him, and when, subsequently, after another period of sole proprietorship, he became the senior partner of the present firm.

“These costumes would be worth a fortune for anybody who could find a use for them,” said Mr. Williamson. “In England and America managers are able to dispose of their surplus stocks for the provincial tours. Here there are no such means of recovering a portion of the initial expense. We cannot sell the costumes. All we can do is keep them in order, on the off chance of making use of the parts as opportunity arises.”

In 1905 over £5,000 [$791,222] was paid away in royalties to authors and others holding the copyrights of plays produced. In addition to such plays, however, Mr. Williamson holds the full Australasian rights of 105 musical operas and musical plays, 40 comedies, and 91 dramas which he has at different times bought outright. Such purchases have been spread over many years, and include the most successful musical and dramatic works produced in London for the last 20 years, as well as many American successes.

One of the largest items in expenditure is transportation. Last year £12,858 [$2,034,705] was expended in fares and freight. The Gilbert and Sullivan Company, which finished its Sydney season last Friday, started immediately for Adelaide, there to take the steamer for Perth, where it opens on October 1. For this season of three weeks only over 80 persons were despatched, and the fares alone amounted to over £1,000 [$158,244]. Companies now travel in a manner never dreamed of 10 years ago, the most striking instance of all being provided by the record of one week in 1905.  Within seven days the Repertoire Company started from Perth to Sydney; the Royal Comic Opera Company travelled by special train from Sydney to Port Adelaide to catch the steamer for Perth; the Nance O’Neill Company arrived in Sydney from San Francisco, and took train immediately for Melbourne; the Andrew Mack Company travelled to Sydney; the Gilbert and Sullivan Company from Melbourne to Sydney; the Tittell Brune Company from Melbourne to Wellington via Sydney; and the Knight-Jefferies Company from Sydney to Brisbane. During last year the various companies covered 76,674 miles [approx.123,395 km].

The Argus (Melbourne), Tuesday, 25 September 1906, p.5, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article9655665

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N.B. Ticket prices for JCW productions in 1905 amounted to 5/ (shillings) (for seats in the Dress Circle & Orchestra Stalls), 3/ (Stalls), 2/ (Back of the Stalls) and 1/ (Ampitheatre or Gallery) =  $39.56, $23.74, $15.82 and $7.91 respectively in today’s currency.

Princess’ Theatre, Melbourne, 1893. Photo by Charles Rudd. State Library Victoria, Melbourne.