Lilla Wilde
Lilla Wilde was an actress active in South Africa in the late 1880s and early 1890s.
Also referred to as Miss Wilde.
Contents
Biography
Married to the actor Albert Lucas, who also performed in South Africa.
Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance
She and her husband apparently were initially employed by Edgar Perkins as a leading actress for of one his companies in the North of the country, but when the company disbanded in 1891, she joined a scratch company performing in the Vaudeville Theatre, Cape Town. The season of plays she appeared in on this occasion included The Idler (Chambers), The Silver King (Jones and Herman), Mr Barnes of New York (Gunter/Collier-Edwards) and Forget-me-Not (Merivale and Grove).
According to D.C. Boonzaier (1923) she was a fine actress, but he also mentions that, possibly because of the Cape Town public's indifference to so-called "scratch companies" at the time, the season in the Vaudeville Theatre was not well supported, nor were productions she and her husband later staged. In fact Boonzaier mentions an intended performance of a few one act plays in the Claremont Town Hall which did not get one patron.
The couple also went on to perform in Australia and New Zealand in the mid 1890s, and later returned to England to continue their careers there.
Sources
"The late Mr Albert Lucas" The Brisbane Courier, Saturday 28 October, 1911 Page 13. Trove[1]
D.C. Boonzaier, 1923. "My playgoing days – 30 years in the history of the Cape Town stage", in SA Review, 9 March and 24 August 1932. (Reprinted in Bosman 1980: pp. 374-439.)
F.C.L. Bosman. 1980. Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel II, 1856-1916. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik: pp.391-2
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