San Francisco dramatic review (1899)

1 THE SAN FRANCISCO DRAMATIC REVIEW October 16, 1909 MOROSCOS BURBANK THEATRE Los Angeles, Cal. "The Beit in the Wett" The Leading Stock House. ^vrJ HOMC Ornci BURBANK THEATRE BUILOUG ' » LOS ANGELES, C»L. Uliver jyioruacu & riajo Ready for Stock The Judge and the Jury The Halfbreed The Empress and the Soldier In South Car'llney Is the New Majestic a winner 7 Well, we guess yes Hamburger's MAJESTICTheatre The Handsomest in the West Cost $300,000.00 Oliver Morosco, Lessee \ Mer For time address John Cokt Menzel's Dramatic Agency These are busy times. I want 50 good actors. Orders are pouring in every day. A record of my recent activity: Supplied Ed. K Edmonds 'company for Santa Cruz; Edwin Emery for the American Theatre, this city ; Chas. King's company for the Pickwick, San Diego; Del Lawrence company, Seattle; Hallett and Clement stock, Fresno; Lorraine Buchanan company, for road; Millidge Sherwood company in King Lear, for road ; and a host of single orders. Notwithstanding some pessimists, I do do business. WM. MENZEL, 915 Van Ness Avenue San Francisco, Cal. The Orpheum Portola week will be most delightfully celebrated at the Orpheum. George Bloomquest, one of the most popular light comedians that have appeared in this city, and now a fullfledged headliner in vaudeville, will appear in a sketch written expressly for him, called Nerve. Mr. Bloomquest will be supported by a capital little company, which includes Rubyn Thorpe, Earl D. Dwire and Thomas Broom. He has scored a great hit in all the theatres he has appeared in. Eugene Howard and Willie will present their immensely successful act, The Messenger Boy and the Thespian. They are both capital vocalists with a popular selection of songs, and their comedy places them in a class by themselves. The Hebrew Messenger Boy of Willie Howard brims over with fun and there is not a dull moment in their entire act. Martinettie and Sylvester, two exceptionally strenuous and agile comedians who are often called "The Boys with the Chairs," will introduce a novelty in acrobatics entitled An Attempt at Suicide, while Joe Sylvester is a famous clown, Clark Martinettie is a remarkable athlete. Ballerini's canine tumblers will give a most wonderful exhibition of animal sagacity. Not a command is given or a whip used to them. These little dogs are apt pupils and with them is associated a kitten in whom Mr. Ballerini takes a special pride. Their performance is a delightfully interesting one to the children. Next week will terminate the engagements of the Tuscany Troubadours, the six Glinserettis, German comedians, Carlin and Clark, and Valerie Bergere, who in response to a numerously expressed wish will revive for the first time here in several seasons the charming comedietta, Billie's First Love. A new series of motion pictures particularly suited to the occasion will terminate the entertainment. its initial presentation this season the Belasco-Tully play has filled the theatre at every performance and given thousands of people a foretaste of the Portola carnival. Of the acting, the scenery, the costumery and the music — of the play itself and the mode of its presentation — so much has been said and written that to again extol them might savor of superfluity. But it may not be amiss to state that the performance waxes in smoothness with each repetition. In the play there is such an abundance of detail — of seeming trifles which are essential to perfection of effect — that the actors are constantly improving their work by adding to its minutae. Thus does practice make perfect. Among those who witnessed the Alcazar's production of The Rose last season was David Belasco, and he pronounced it the most wonderful achievement ever attained in a stock theatre. And of Miss Barriscale's acting in the title part he was lavish in praise. If he were to see the present production he would marvel still more. As the Alcazar management has the exclusive right to present The Rose of the Rancho in California, and will present it nowhere else than in San Francisco this season, the city's guests during Portola week will undoubtedly take advantage of the opportunity to witness the greatest play of California life that ever was staged. Alcazar Theatre With drawing power undiminished, The Rose of the Rancho will be started on its second and final week in the Alcazar next Monday evening. Since Valencia Theatre The last appearance of George Fawcett in The Great John Ganton will take place this Saturday afternoon and evening and on Sunday night The Ringmaster the Shuberts' first dramatic success of the season, will begin a limited engagement, coming direct from the Maxine Elliott Theatre, New York, with a big cast of metropolitan favorites. The story is a most absorbing one of Wall street intrigue. John Le Baron, whose father was a man of sharp business practices, prefers a life of ease rather than following in the footsteps of his parent. Eleanor Hillary, daughter of Richard Hillary, known as "the ringmaster of Wall street," meets Le Baron abroad, where they fall in love. She endeavors to persuade him to return to New York and take up life as a broker. He comes back to bis home and is soon invited to take part in the formation of a copper trust, which plan Richard Hillary is putting through with Senators Craven and MacElroy, president of the Eastern Railroad. The object is to buy all of the stock of the Eastern Railroad, which is the feeder of the company in Colorado, thus crippling the copper organization and forcing it into submission. When Le Baron learns of this he refuses to take part, but wrings from the trio a promise that they will desist. Believing that they will keep their promise, he boards his private yacht and sets sail for Europe and at the same time Hillary engages passage on an Atlantic liner. While at sea, however, two guests of Le Baron intercept a message to Hillary which graphically tells that the scheme has not been dropped. Le Baron returns to New York and how he defeats the "Ringmaster" forms the most interesting part of the story. The cast includes H. S. Northrup, Frederick Montague F. A. Yalvington, Alice Weeks, Harvey D. Grossman, John Watts, Francis Learned, Rosamond Carpentier, Clara Collman and Anna Lee. Matinees will be given on Wednesday and Saturday and during the run of The Ringmaster popular Portola prices will prevail, seats ranging from one dollar down \< i twenty-five cents. Eddie Foy, the favorite comedian, who has not been seen in S?n Francisco for years, will follow in Mr. Hamlet of Broadway. Spotlights Beginning with the matinee Monday, October 4th, Charles Alphin and his newly organized company took possession of the Fischer Theatre, Los Angeles, for an indefinite engagement. Mr. Alphin is the producer and heads the new company. With him is .Maude Rockwell, new to Los Angeles, but well known to San Francisco theatregoers, to do the woman leads. Blossom Seeley is seen in the soubrette parts. Richard Kipling is the leading man. Dave Morris is one of the comedians. Morris is a clever dancer and comedian. The Flag Lieutenant ceased to be, as far as America is concerned, early in its career in New York. The same sad fate overtook The Sins of Society. The greater fall was that of The Sins of Society, with its Drury Lane prestige and the tremendous heralding which it had from Chicago, where it enjoyed some weeks of prosperity. It was expected to perform wonders in the drawing line in New York, but the public drew the line. Bruce McRea and Isabel Irving, who played the principal parts in The Flag Lieutenant, will step from this naval play into a military drama, having been engaged by Daniel Frohman for leading parts in the Commanding Officer, which was offered this week. Paul Everton and Fernanda Eliscu will play the leading roles in the Great Hudson Theatre, New York, success, The Third Degree, which was written by Charles Klein, the author of The Lion and the Mouse. The story of the play deals with a certain condition of social life found in any large city, and also with the methods employed by the police in extorting confessions from those accused of crime. Henry Miller will star Laura Hope Crews in Maggie, Edward Peple's new Irish comedy. Oscar Dane of the Gayety Theatre, St. Louis, has opened a vaudeville and dramatic exchange on the second floor of the Lyceum Theatre Building on Sixth street in that city. Dane is booking acts for Frank Talbot's Gem Theatre and several other St. Louis theatres, as well as houses in Missouri and Illinois. The office conducts a general booking business for vaudeville acts and books repertoire companies and musical comedy companies in this territory. Dane is also making a specialty of booking talking picture companies. This office is the headquarters for the new Illinois-Missouri Theatrical Managers' Association. Acts desiring time in this locality would do well to communicate with Dane. The Roberts & Gillard Company close in Calgarv, Canada, on October 1 6th. There will be Wednesday and Saturday matinees of The Third Degree at the Van Ness Theatre. O. Henry, one of the best short story writers in America, has budded forth as a playwright. He has just finished a drama entitled, Lo. It is based upon Henry's story, He Also Serves. Frank M. Eldridge was declared a bankrupt in Salt Lake City, on September 1 6th. While the late Dr. William C. Finlaw of Santa Rosa sleeps in an honored soldier's grave at the Presidio, the secret it is claimed he carried within his breast for more than forty years and to the end, is out. The pension department has supplied the missing links in a chain of romance which, if sustained in the United States Circuit Court, where suit has been filed, will divest his supposed widow, Mrs. Anna Love Finlaw, now traveling in southern Italy, of property valued at $60,000 and vest title with a former undivorced wife, Mrs. Jane Bradley Finlaw of Cincinnati, and a granddaughter, Mary B. Finlaw, a young actress known on the New York stage as Marie Baxter. The suit filed with the federal court is a plain ouster action to recover from the supposed widow the fortune left by the former army physician when he died intestate a few years ago. In addition, the supposed widow is asked to pay $6,000 damage for retention of the wealth and $6,000 back rents. 3 Hotel St. James "B^finnffilsCor. Van Ness Ave. and Fulton St. San Francisco, California Headquarters for Agents and Managers Half Block from Van Ness Theatre. Friars meet at the St. James every Friday night. F. 1\ SHANLEY, Manager, formerly of New York