San Francisco dramatic review (1899)

2 September 23rd, 1899 Past Days of Minstrelsy RKMINISCENSES OK THE OLD AI.HAMBRA THEATER. During the progress of a recent performance the writer's mind took a retrospective turn and wandered back to the days of 1872. Probably the greatest minstrel troupe ever organized in the State was then performiug at the Alhambra (now the New Comedy theater. ) Tom Maguire was then a rich man and was about that time in the zenith of his power and glor\ — known all over America as the Napoleon of the stage, he used to say that money " cut no ice " with him so long as he got performers that could catch the public taste. In those days Sam Wetherhill was Maguire' s manager, and when Sam was on deck and prepared to attend to business his ' ' make-up ' ' was a study. All the boy-and-girl population of San Francisco used to regard him with an amount of admiration and awe that seems now almost impossible. A long sealskin overcoat, said to have cost $900.00, a large cluster diamond cross in his shirtbosom worth $1,500, a single-stone ring which cost $2,300, were among the trifles Sam used to adorn himself with. Eight shows a week all the year round, excepting in Christmas, New Years and Fourth -of-July weeks, when the number of performances would reach nine and ten. Houses were all packed to the door and seats $1.00 and $1.50, the choice and expensive seats being in the gallery. This big business was kept up for four consecutive years, and there appears to be good grounds for the story that during the year and a half that Billy Emerson was in partnership with Maguire they divided between them the snug sum of $100,000. What a show they gave in those days to be sure ! The orchestra was composed ot sixteen of the very best players in the city under the baton of George Evans, one of the most accomplished musicians ever on the coast. A good pianist, a splendid organist and a man who has never been equaled in the business as a writer for the orchestra. A chorus of eight male voices, backed up by four solo singers: Messrs. James Russell, W. F. Baker, Benj. Clark and Aynsley Scott made up the musical portion of the first part. The enden were: Emerson, Willis, Sweat man, Bob Hart and Charles Sutton. In the second part, McAndrews, the watermelou man. Sam Rickey, Add Ryman, William Manning, Little Mack and Delahintey and Hengler. The latter had just brought out their song and dance, "Love Among the Rcses" and the whole town was whistling the melody. Emerson had also produced the "Big Sunflower." Russell was telling the audience every night about the ' Day When You'll Forget Me," which he sang for twelve consecutive weeks. Baker warbled about " Mollie Darling," and Clark sang " Happy Be Thy Dreams" for ten weeks. To obtain a seat after the curtain went up was simply out of the question, and no sweller audience could be found in the city theaters than at the Alhambra. But how things have changed! A minstrel show cannot in these days hold the boards in a San Francisco theater for more than a couple of weeks at the outside. And indeed, this is not to be wondered at, for the average minstrel show now is a poor affair in comparison with those of the seventies and eighties. — B. C. Sousa' s Ragtime Tun IT ere is the story they are now ■ * telling about Sousa — it's something terrible: — The shocking tale is to the effect that Mr. Sousa, accompanied by Bob Hunter, of Manhattan Beach, strolled into Reiman's on Friday and handed his handsome gold watch to a clerk with the request that he fix it. The expert at the window examined the works, which showed no evidence of disorder and said: "Why, Mr. Sousa, I don't see anything wrong; what's the trouble?" "No trouble, no trouble at all," replied the March King. " I only want it rigulated. " " Does it gain or lose?" asked the watchmaker. " Neither, sir," was the reply. " Then why do you want it regulated ? " " Not regulated; I said ragulated," answered Mr. Sousa with some asperity. " I wish to have it ragulated, so that it will keep ragtime while I'm writing a wedding march in that measure for Cissie Loftus." Subscribe for The DramaticReview. $3.00 per year. Western Critics C astern newspapers are very fond ' of "calling down" big theatrical critics of the "wild and woolly West" when the latter soar skyward in describing the "first night" of some possibly ordinary production that has gone on the road and worked its way toward the setting sun and the land of superlative adjectives. But the fellow out West is apt to hit back by quoting some sky-rocket criticisms clipped from Eastern papers. At the Lambs' Club in New York the other night a little knot of actors were discussing this topic, when one of the party said that he could nearly always locate the source of a press notice of a play by the style in which it was written. One of the party who disputed this took from his pocket a newspaper clipping and defied any one of the company to say what part of the country it came from. The clipping referred to a performance of a melodrama now on tour, and it contained the following passages: "The play surpasses 'Monte Cristo' in intensity of action, subtlety of plot, in cause and effect. There are no chasms of sequence that must be bridged by the imagination. It steps immediately upon a high, artistic level of intense active interest, and keeps that level up to the terrific, emotional climax which is the submerging of the expiring bodies of the principal characters in the rolling waters of the Bay of Naples, amid the crashing thunder of an earthquake, in the wreird light of an awful eruption of Mount Yesuvius. "The part of the treacherous friend and villainous desecrator of peace and virtue was excellently played by . "Of , as the Neapolitan ragpicker, we cannot speak too highly. His description of his wife's infidelity, the discovery, his killing her in the arms of her lover and bathing his hands in her warm heart's blood was the best piece of acting by far that we have witnessed for many a day. It was superb, grand, terrific." After a roar of laughter, guessing commenced. One said the criticism came from Oshkosh; another, "somewhere back of Denver," and a third suggested "a one-night stand on the road between Chicago and Dead Man's Gulch." The fact is that the criticism appeared as a serious review in a dignified Eastern paper, one of the most prominent dailies of Boston. After that, would it not be well for the funny men of the East to sing small in referring to dramatic criticism in the 'wild and woolly West.' "— A7. )'. Herald. MUSICAL NOTES "I am well aware that some of you are ready to make the claim that there are other things of more importance than the ability to read music at sight. You will argue that expression and a sweet, sympathetic voice is of more value, and that the time is too short to get both, or all three. I invite your attention to a moment's consideration of this matter. With no disposition to quarrel, or even differ with those who insist upon a sweet, sympathetic voice and the ability to give artistic rendering, yet I question whether they are right when they insist that these are the foundation of the matter. Yon church has a gilded spire which is its artistic capsheaf; it also has a cornerstone. Which was first attended to, and what was the last act of the skilled artisan ? They didn't gild the spire before they hewed the cornerstone, and the cornerstone does not rest upon the gilded spire; just the reverse is the natural order of things. Let us imagine that we have developed a race of artistic singers, but have left out the ability to read the signs that convey the thought of the composer, and in time we will have a race whose knowledge will be handed down as was all knowledge before the time of writing and printing. We will have artists as dumb as oysters unless they can be privileged to hear the music from the lips of another. Really, this argument for building the artistic at the expense* of the ability to read music is as absurd as most of the stock arguments advanced against individual singing in the school room. But the condition confronts us. and something must be done, and that at once, for thousands upon thousands of boys and girls are leaving the public schools every year never having learned to read music — Sterrie A. Weaver in Musical Courier. The Bright Side ' 'I think that the life of an actress is one of the best and most profitable lines that a woman can select. It is all very well to say that very few succeed. Very few rise in any calling. How many journalists succeed? How many novelists succeed ? Success is just as attainable on the stage as anywhere else. I speak and always shall speak most gratefully of it. I have been before the public now twelve years. And I am happier to-day than I have ever been. I work hard — everybody must work hard — and the results are charming." "In London they treat theatrical people like heroes and heroines. Society quarrels over them. Society hankers to entertain them. If you have once succeeded you are taken up and petted. They can't do enough for you. And it seems to me that this is the right spirit. Actors and actresses are people of talent. Brains should be the key that opens drawingrooms. Brain is a finer commodity than money any day. The successful actor, novelist and journalist have the e?itree everywhere in London. No drawing-room is considered complete without them. In New York they are looked down upon." — Mrs. Potter.