Enmore Theatre

The history within the walls of one of the two surviving art-deco theatres in Sydney

Music seeped through the walls of a fully-packed Enmore Theatre on a Tuesday evening in February, 2003. For this occasion thousands of people crowded Enmore road, some making use of the chairs and couches dragged out by locals. Police had to create a roadblock in response to this impromptu street party.[1]

On this night, Enmore Theatre was playing host to the royalty of Rock ‘n’ Roll, the Rolling Stones. 

It might have been presumed that the Stones were playing to a theatre of only 2,000 seats to achieve a more intimate performance on their Australian tour. However, what played a larger role in the band’s choice of venue was lead singer Mick Jagger’s personal connection to the local area through his mother, Eva, who was in fact born in the area in 1913: “in Marrickville in a bungalow next to a pub” according to Mick’s brother, Chris Jagger in an interview for the Sydney Morning Herald.[2]

A recording of the Rolling Stones’s performance in Enmore Theatre in 2003 sourced from YouTube.

Touted as Sydney’s longest-running live theatre, Enmore Theatre has undergone several alterations in its over one-hundred-year history. It was opened in 1912 and run in its early years by the Szarka Bros. as a ‘photoplay theatre’, screening silent films accompanied by a full orchestra on a nightly basis. In 1927 the theatre was linked to the Hoyts chain, and converted, as Meader, Cashman and Carolan describe, “into a cinema-cum-pantomime theatre”.[3]

“Enjoyed by those who appreciate what a good thing is in life”. An advertisement for the theatre shortly after opening. “Amusements”, The Hebrew Standard of Australasia, March 6, 1914. http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/12082587.

An advertisement for the theatre in the Freeman’s Journal several years after its opening reflects its recent refurbishment into a cinema and vaudeville hall. “The New Enmore Theatre”, The Freeman’s Journal, August 26, 1920. http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/115602077.

Hoyts lorry, offering a free piece of Christmas cake to each child attending a matinee show. By this point the theatre has been linked to the Hoyts chain. “Enmore Theatre Lorry”. December 1938. State Library of New South Wales. http://acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/item/itemLarge.aspx?itemID=22554.

Advertising the film “You Can’t Take it With You” in March, 1939.
“Enmore theatre advertising”. March 1939. State Library of New South Wales. http://acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/item/itemDetailPaged.aspx?itemID=24354

In 1969 the venue was purchased by the Louis Film Company and renamed the ‘Finos Theatre’, screening Greek language films to popular appeal. Such films, perhaps, spoke to a more multiculturally diverse population in the region, in a similar vein to the wildly popular reception of “Wogs Out of Work” in the theatre 1989 after it had once again changed hands.[4]

In 1985 the theatre was refurbished and re-titled ‘Enmore Theatre’, which it retains to this day.

The Enmore Theatre today. Photo by the author, 6 November, 2015.

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Notes

[1] Fitzsimmons, Hamish. “Enmore Theatre Rocks and Rolls with the Stones”. The World Today, February 19, 2003. Accessed November 5, 2015. http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/stories/s788034.htm.

[2] “Tales of Our Australian Mother”, The Sydney Morning Herald, May 13, 2012. Accessed November 5, 2015. http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/tales-of-our-australian-mother-20120512-1yjcs.html.

[3] Meader, Chris, Cashman, Richard, and Carolan, Anne. Marrickville, People and Places. Sydney: Hale and Iremonger, 1994, p. 146.

[4] Meader, Chris. “Enmore”. Dictionary of Sydney. Accessed November 5, 2015. http://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/enmore.