We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
78
Reprint with kind permission of the Editor. "Daily Telegraph,"
October 2\st, 1903
NATURE ON THE STAGE.
( The Article, is bated on cm interview with Mr. Charles Morton, of /lie /'iiliice, and Mr. Doiujlas Co.r, Mauayi r of the AUiambra, London, rekitire to the interest in Natural History Pictures shown by ■present day audienes).
When Miss Loie Fuller can offer us what look like real fisli swimming in a real sea, and can induce gaudy butterflies to flit languidly about in stage sunshine, she raises a problem of real interest. It is whether we are destined to see the theatre of varieties become by far the most popular school of natural history. May we, indeed, expect to find the animal creation, not merely doing "business" on the screen, but eventually disporting on the stage itself in such a way as to unfold its manifold aspects to delighted audiences V The real thing, except in a limited sense, is apparently impossible. You might get a fraction of the vitality of the Zoological Gardens concentrated on the music-hall stage, but even that fraction might refuse to disport itself as you would wish. There remains the alternative between photographic reproduction and the use of very elaborate mechanism. As to the latter, Mr. Charles Morton, the doyen of music hall managers, explained yesterday that these are days of such lightning programmes that there is hesitation in filling the stage with one particular thing when you are obliged almost immediately to clear it away to make room for another.
All the same, Mr. Morton has anything but conservative views on this question. Speaking of Miss L< ie Fuller's admirable entertainment, which has been shortly summed-up as the result of " gauzes and lenses," he points out that it does not pretend to give the iv ll thing. Hut the world moves so fast that he is quite prepared to believe that the real thing will come, but, perhaps, not in his time. Who could have predicted the jump from the staid magic lantern of old to the prancing cinematograph ef to-day? It lias given us somethinginfinitely superior to still-life. For instance, the Palace Theatre is showing a stag hunt. " We have had it for a month,'' said Mr. Morton, "and I have never missed seeing it, so pretty is it. How they managed to get it I don't know. Then we had the animals at the Royal Show — the trotting and jumping, the parade of the cattle, and all that. We shall pivs ntly have some beautiful pictures of the animals at the Zoo. Our latest is a representation of Captain Deasy's daring motor drive in the Alps. As for colour, well that will come. In fact, 1 may say it is coming. At present I see no other way of picturing life in being. You can have stuffed animals in any position you like, but the public don't care for them." It is Mr. Morton's view that his audiences rather like the combination of amusement and instruction which living pictures afford. " It is as The Daily Telegruph s i ys : people dine at eight, and want about an hour of something as light as they can get. We try to make our pictures fit in with that demand.''
Mr. Douglas Cox, the manager of the Alhambra, has carried the idea of " Nature on the stage " a little further. This week lie has .introduced a new series of what may be called natural history lessons