ON Friday of last week the Tivoli (Sydney) had its 35th anniversary as a theatre. A few days before its opening as the Adelphi (April 5, 1911) several of us were invited to an inspection. One of our number was Harry Skinner, letting manager of the Palace Theatre. A showman of the old school, Harry went from seat to seat in stalls, circle and gallery, to check up sighting angles on the stage. He was highly critical of the line of vision from side seats it would be bad luck to be ushered into anyhow. Rather elated at his discovery of the worst, he announced that he wouldn't let the architect build an outhouse for him. Some malicious person passed his judgment on to the architect, who considered, not without justification, that his professional capacity had been impugned. Result was that Harry received a solicitor's letter on his moot and burning comment. He was asked to acquaint the legal man with the name of his solicitor who would accept service of a writ for slander. Harry wrote back that there was no need for precipitate action. He was not only prepared to apologise, but to retract unreservedly. He would, he assured the solicitor of the architect, allow his client to build an outhouse for him should ever the occasion arise. In the face of this whole-souled acknowledgement of having been in the wrong the threatened proceedings were not carried any further.
GEORGE Marlow was the first lessee of the Adelphi. He had been an actor of minor gifts with William Anderson, who presented lurid melodrama at 3/-, 2/- and 1/-. George's wife was an ambitious soubrette and, as he reasoned it, if Anderson could make his wife, Eugenie Duggan, a leading lady there was no earthly reason why he couldn't keep his own wife's salary in the family. So Ethel Buckley became a star. She appeared as a series of stage girls. The bad one of the family, the one who took the wrong turning, always to triumph virtuously however misjudged by those too ready to condemn.
For years virtue had its box office reward, and George Marlow waxed wealthy. Like Anderson, he owned racehorses, but in his case he won a race now and then. And George would have a packet on his colors when winning. He went into real estate, buying around Circular Quay. Always he had kept as a saver a small tobacconist's shop in George Street. The day came when he concluded he would never have to go back to it. Then racing and real estate preoccupied him, and he sold his lease in the Adelphi, his scripts and company to George Willoughby.
These nights you may often hear George Willoughby's fruity voice in ABC plays. He is either a colonel or a squire, always the head of a good county family. For George Willoughby has gone up in the world of make-believe. He came to this country as a farce comedy actor, and few in his day could be more solemnly hilarious. He was "The Wrong Mr. Wright" and other absurdities. As the successor and assign of the Marlow tradition a farceur was a calamity. Marlow believed in the heroine in distress with all the passion of a business man in a gilt-edged asset. He imparted his faith to his company who spoke the lines of masters of bathos with a fierce conviction that clutched at the heart of a multitude. No situation where the villain was in pursuit but was a breathless moment for Marlow's audiences.
GEORGE Willoughby hadn't the same deep sincerity for the impossible. Burlesque of every human instinct and relation was to him a reversal of the uses of adversity. Where Marlow wrung tears of compassion from his patrons. Willoughby, with material that was a travesty of probability, was accustomed to evoke tears of laughter. He was congenitally and by stage training incapable of trading in such undisguised trash. Anyway, he couldn't disguise it as human experience. The more he spent on these productions the farther they receded from verisimilitude. As a vendor of the near-victim of a rich man's whim Willoughby was a flop. And simply because when they jumped in the lake he firmly believed that they ought to — for reasons his dramatists always neglected to mention.
AFTER Willoughby had no doubt analysed the truth of humour as a disability, the Fullers entered into possession of the Adelphi, which now be came the Opera House. The redoubtable Sir Benjamin had the provender for appetites that sought satisfaction to that end of the town, and with varied bills he drew them in droves. But he, too, had yearnings for higher standards, and with Hugh Ward the St. James Theatre arose to challenge J. C. Williamsons in the light musical field.
HOWEVER, as these recollections bear on the Opera House, there was before this, marathon litigation. It was marked by great tenacity of all parties. They were the brothers Fuller and T. E. Rofe. How the original antagonism began isn't very clear. But Rofe held the ground lease of the theatre from the City Council, and when a shop in the building was let by the operating lessees — the Fullers — without reference to him, he went to law. The case was fought to the Privy Council and Rofe won. The verdict enabled him to cancel the Fuller lease. Fullers had remodelled the auditorium by lowering the circle and gallery and resighting the house. These improvements cost over £25,000 and, of course, fell into Rofe's lap.
COUNTING this consequence and the legal costs, the Fullers were set back by £60,000. It was then that they came up town to the St James, and Marlow once again became lessee of his old stand. While the Fullers ran the Opera House they introduced Stiffy and Mo in pantomime. It was then that the old gag, "As a music lover, what do you think of Mozart?" was inflicted on us. The answer, of course, was, "I prefer Stiffy's." Girl and dance shows, an American burlesque company, melodrama, and Italian grand opera kept the entertainment varied under the Fuller flag.
LATER the theatre was re-christened the Tivoli, and vaudeville and revue experienced a revival amounting to a boom. This has been sustained to the enrichment of the management if not to the elevation of popular taste. However, they make no pretence to be a refining Influence. That obviously not being the answer to how hang out "House Full" signs.— CM.
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