In the early 20th century, most Australian
theatrical entrepreneurs were foreign born. There was one exception, William
Anderson. For over thirty years Anderson dominated Australian melodrama and
actively supported native writers, actors and producers.
Through his work as a booker, Anderson met
English actor/manager Charles Holloway. By 1895 he had become Holloway's
business manager. However, it was more than business that attracted him to
Holloway's company. Its leading lady, Eugenie Duggan was a talented, attractive
and increasingly popular young actress. In 1898, she became Mrs William
Anderson and thus began one of Australia’s most popular melodramatic companies,
the William Anderson Company.
It was a family affair that featured
Eugenie, her brother Edmund and a host of Australian actors. It was one of the
few companies that did not rely on overseas talent as a draw. Anderson believed
in Australian drama and also supported local writers and set designers, an unusual
action for the time. His plays featured realistic sets, Australian themes and
Australian accents. Typical of his melodramas was Thunderbolt, a play about the
notorious bushranger, Frank Ward. The scenery consisted of gum trees, koalas
and an authentic Cobb and Co coach driven on stage.
Anderson was a man of grand ambitions and
grandiose plans. By 1905 his company was one of the most popular in Australia
but William wanted more than a company, he wanted an empire. By the end of that
year he was presenting several different productions across Australia and New
Zealand. They included Sinbad the Sailor at the Theatre Royal in Sydney, a
season of melodrama at The Royal in Hobart, another series of melodrama
featuring George Darrell and a tour of New Zealand by Czerny a magician.
Anderson was a gambler who owned several racehorses. According to his long time friend Jack Ricketts ' he was modest in his successes
and a sport in his losses'. William’s business decisions combined a gambler’s
recklessness with gambler’s luck.
In 1906 he paid 3650 pounds for land at
Bondi in Sydney to build Wonderland City, an open air amusement park. The park included a circus, flying machines,
aquarium, a maze, a Merry Go Round skating rink and a miniature railway. There
was also a vaudeville act and several novelty features, including Alice the
elephant. It was designed as a pleasure palace and beautifully situated next to
the sea. By the time it opened in 1907, Anderson had spent 15000 pounds on this
folly.
His ambitions were endless, in 1907 he
hired architect William Pitt to build a grand theatre on Russell Street in
Melbourne. The theatre was called the Kings Theatre and Anderson paid a 1000
pound deposit and committed to a 7 year lease of the building at a grand rate
of 4420 pounds per annum. These were enormous sums for the time.
Yet his grandiosity did not stop there. In
addition to his playground and theatre, in 1906, Anderson toured Wonderland Circus
across Queensland. The endless delays and logistical nightmare of transporting
a circus which featured exotic animals cost a fortune. But William persisted
despite the obvious difficulties.
The Kings Theatre in Melbourne was speedily
finished and opened in 1908 with Man to Man .The first season featured a series
of bush dramas written by Albert Edmunds ( Edmund Duggan and Bert Bailey).
Edmund was Eugenie's brother and Bert was a long time member of Anderson's
company. Their plays had realistic settings and in one case included shearing a
sheep on stage.
In 1909 Anderson was featured in The
Referee newspaper as one of the preeminent theatrical managers in the country.
His picture stood side by side with JC Williamson, Harry Rickards and James
Brennan, a situation which proved his importance to the Australian theatrical
industry.
However by 1910, it was clear that Anderson
had been too ambitious. The Sydney manager of Wonderland City was being hounded
by creditors and desperately asking his boss for funds. Anderson, ensconced at
the Kings Theatre studiously avoided the pleas and his secretary was responding
to letters with
' So far I cannot get the boss to fix up
these outstanding accounts of Sydney. The boss is only here a few minutes every
day.’
He was probably spending a great deal of
time at the famous Melbourne races.
By 1911 a combination of bad debts and
local opposition to the park forced Wonderland City to close. For months
afterwards, Jack Ricketts, the manager, dodged and weaved his way through bills
and demands with little help from his boss who had many other problems on his
mind.
Anderson was in severe financial difficulty
and never recovered his former glory. In 1912 he sub leased the Kings Theatre
to Duggan and Bailey who had a magnificent success with their version of Steele
Rudd's On Our Selection. This was another wholly Australian production which
would never have been produced without Anderson's financial and logistical
support. The play became a staple of Australian theatre for decades.
Anderson continued in theatrical production;
however he never reproduced his former successes. He settled for a time in
Adelaide, and often staged an annual pantomime. However it was clear by World
War 1 that the public had outgrown his traditional melodramatic fare.
In the 1920s he and Eugenie moved to
Melbourne, and the couple separated later in the decade. She died in 1936 and
William died shortly afterwards in 1940.
William Anderson was a proud and
extravagant Australian entrepreneur who embodied the reckless abandon and creativity
of his time. He was a man who thought that Australian product was as good as or
better than foreign productions and backed his theory with practical support of
Australian actors, writers and artisans. In many ways he was the forefather of
the native theatrical movement.
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