[2][a] James MacMahon was early attracted to the theatre, and at age 17 joined a stage management company that brought the tragedienne Mrs Scott-Siddons to the Academy of Music, Ballarat for a two-night season of dramatic readings on 21–22 October 1876.
Siddons retired from the stage in 1884 and after negotiating rights to Henry Irving's production of Romeo and Juliet, James MacMahon returned to Australia by the SS Rome.
They secured rights to Called Back;[b] Joseph Derrick's Confusion; The Private Secretary;[c] Merritt and Harris's Youth, The Lights o' London, and Moths,[d] as well as plays written by Leitch before he left England.
They then successfully sued Wellington Evening Post and the Press Association for publishing a report implying they had left Hamilton with debts unpaid.
[24] The combination was again active in Australia two years later, playing His Natural Life in February 1889, with Leitch, Alice Deorwyn, G. R. Ireland, Wilson Forbes, and Blanche Lewis at the Theatre Royal, Hobart,[25] and March 1889 with The Silver King at the Academy of Music, Ballarat.
This character appeared in every scene but said nothing and took no part in the proceedings, but was always doing something, whether fishing, playing cards with himself or cheekily interacting with the audience, and Harris became a crowd favorite.
[32] These American imports were expensive however, and though popular at first could not sustain public interest and, like Evangeline, County Fair lost money for the Macmahons, resulting in their bankruptcy.
John L. Sullivan, the popular boxer, failed to draw the crowds when he played in Willing Hands and Honest Hearts, written by his manager Duncan B. Harrison.
[1] In 1894 they joined with Richard P. Kenna to produce Morocco Bound, viewed by some as the first musical comedy,[34] at the Lyceum Theatre with William Elton and Wilfred Shine in the cast.
In 1897 James MacMahon took over the Lyceum Theatre, which had been idle for some time, and instituted a series of quality productions at modest prices, featuring such actors as Alfred Dampier.
[41] The MacMahons gave a demonstration of moving pictures at a Pitt Street store, claimed the first such in Sydney, close to where Film House later stood.