The San Francisco Dramatic Review (1908)

\ THE SAN FRANCISCO DRAMATIC REVIEW January 3, 1914 Otis Skin^^f Opens Victoria Theatre "TORIA (B. C), Dec. 30.— Skinner in Kismet opened the nificent new Victoria Theatre is city last evening. The new house, which cost upward of ^.300,000, was built entirely by local subscription and is one of the finest theatres in the Northwest. The di- rectors chose Mr. Skinner as the most distinguished romantic actor of the time to dedicate the new thea- tre. This choice was made at a meeting held some months ago. The occasion of the opening of the new Victoria Theatre was the most bril- liant .social event in the history of Victoria. An address of dedication was made by Sir Richard McBride, Premier of the Province, and Mr. Skinner made an address in which he complimented the citizens upon their public spirit in building .so magnificent a temple of the dra- matic art, and thanked the directors for the great honor they had paid him in inviting him to be the first actor to speak from its stage. Every seat in the big theatre was sold weeks ago at heavy premiums, and the audience was made up of the most prominent Government offi- cials and social personages of West- ern Canada. Demented Magician Kills Wife and Daughter CINCINNATI, Dec. 29. —Robert Maloney, a magician, who registered at a leading hotel under his stage name of J. R. Willard, shot and killed his wife, Othello, and Frances, his one-year-old daughter, while they slept early today. Alaloney then rushed from the room in his undergarments and ran shrieking down the street to the sus])ension bridge, where he was arrested. In his cell Maloney cried repeatedly that he had to kill his wife because he saw the demon of darkness in her eyes and in those of the baby. "I hated to do it, but it had to be done. I could see the devil walking in the eyes of both," he said to Coroner Foertmyer. Germany's Leading Comedian is Dead The death of Josef Giampetro, Ger- many's leading comedian, is announced in advices received here from Berlin today. His death was sudden, the re- sult of a paralytic stroke. Giampetro was 47 years old. He made a specialty of burlesquing bumptious German mil- itary men. Houston Vice President 0. S. L. M. P. Ex. From Portland town comes the tidings that John V. Houston, Klam- ath theatrical syndicate and pioneer show man of southern Oregon, has been chosen vice-president of the Oregon State League of Moving Picture Exhibitors. Marth.\ Messinger joined The Bluebird company last week, assum- ing the leading role of Light. It was this role that the author, Mae- terlinck, wrote for his wife, who sang at the Boston Opera House last season. WILLIAM A. BRADY. Prominent American Manager, Whose Activities Stretch From Ocean to Ocean Do Managers Really Know Good Plays When They See Them? The wonderful success that has befallen Little Women has again brought forth the inquiry, "Do man- agers really know good inlays when they see them, or see them acted?" There are instances a plenty in sup- port of this assertion. Many of the biggest successes have been turned down, and some of the prominent New York managers have expressed unfavorable criticism of plays that afterwards made hits, and as the saying is, coined money. The Old Homestead, which at first went beg- ging for a hearing and was rejected by every prominent manager at the time, was finally taken up by the late J. M. Hill, then a novice in the management, and in its first two years' run at the New York Acad- emy of Music showed a profit of two hundred and fortv thou.sand dollars. It has made a million dollars to date. Shore Acres, Arizona, Shenandoah, all money makers, had to encounter all sorts of managerial opposition before being launched on the wave of success. As a rule managers fol- low a certain rule: they get into a cut and dried plane. Ask any of them to read a play that is out of the conventional and they will sav at once. "My boy, it will never go." Probably no plav was ever more knocked from pillar to post than Little Women, which is going through the country like wi^fifQ,, and is one of the best pieces of the- atrical property to be found today. It was hawked all over New York, read alike by manager and actor, but all shook their heads; nobody would touch it; wouldn't even con- sider it. "\A'hat," said one astute manager whose name is known from one end of the country to the other, "a play without a villain, without even the big 'punch' in act three? That will never do." The play was submitted to Wm. A. Brady, who seems to be able to pick winners consistently. Brady read it, and said, "That will go," gave it a fine ])roduction, engaged a first class company of players, and—the rest is history. Little Women was put on in New York at Mr. Brady's play- house, and simply swept everything before it. Traditions were swept away and for one solid year, while scarcely any of the opposition at- tractions were doing even a paying business. Little Women was nightly l)laying to crowded houses. New Theatre for Fresno Jim Ryan of Fresno is having constructed on his property, F and Tulare streets, a vaudeville and pic- ture house—seating capacity 1200— which he will open in February. Matt Burton will have the opening company, in musical comedy. Two bills a week will be the policy of the house for a long run. Geneva Lockes is spending the holiday season with her folks in Port- Jend,. ••::*: , George Davis Home George II. Davis, the business manager of the Alcazar Theatre, re- turned home from New York on Tuesday, with a trunk full of con- tracts with new people for the Al- cazar, and the manuscripts of many of the latest Eastern productions for the O'Farrell Street playhouse. Among other plays he succeeded in obtaining was The Girl and the Pen- nant, written by Christy Mathew- son. This play will be the medium for Bert Lytell's and Evelyn Vaughan's farewell week at the Al- cazar, following The Country Boy. He also brings the plays for the An- drew Mack season which follows the Lytells. MacQuarrie Pleases the South George MacQuarric, who handles the leading role of Robert Stafford, the millionaire, is an excellent actor, and acquits himself with credit in all situations. Helen MacKeller, who plays opposite him as Virginia B>laine, is exceedingly clever, and handles some rather difficult lines with great skill. Her work is of a different type from that of Hobart Cavanaugh, but she deserves to rank with him at the head of an excep- tionally able group of players which is presenting Bought and Paid For. A^ 0. Times Democrat. But as good as Bought and Paid For is, it would lose much f)f its worth in the hands of an inferior company. Fortunately, the companv that presented it last night is well worthy of the merit of the drama. The lines are clever and bright, while most of the acting calls for delicate tracery and not the broad s])lotches that pass for humor and sentiment. The characters are hu- man and the emotions normal, so that the actors dare not give them false values, and throughout the whole play there was not a single word or act that offended one's sense of the fitness of things. The part of Robert .Stafl''ord, the husband, was in the hands of George MacOuarrie, an actor who makes his presence felt bv merelv coming on the stage. Mr. MacOuarrie has the physique and the dvnamic energy that the part re- quired ; intelligent in method, cor- rect in his appreciation of values and with a voice that accuratelv meas- ures the power of his words, he made the role of Stafford dominant and dominatincr. From the strong, con- tained and loving husband, suave and gentlemanlv, he readily passes into the brutish beast, and both parts seems to suit him equallv well. .-\s the drunken husband his feet were beset with manv pitfalls, and he was in danger of making this dnmken man disgusting, but he avoided this and made him what the author intended. Helen MacKeller as the young wife was sweet, ideal- ly sympathetic and lovable. Creating, as she did in the first act, the tone of a submissive and refined type of woman, she surprised her audience with the crescendo of emotion which she reached at the end of the second act, and throughout the whole play she never deviated one iota from the delicate lining of the part.—.V^c Orleans Picayune. Anna Hei-p's vaudeville contract with John Cort has terminated.