San Francisco dramatic review (1899)

THE SAN FRANCISCO DRAMATIC REVIEW October 23, 1909. The Fortune HunterTells of a Young Man Who Found That Goodness Pays A youttg man once rich finds himself poor. He tries work and tails. I lis employers discharge him. He is proficient at cocktails and cigarettes; a failure apparently at everything else. He ashamed to ask further help from friends, and reluctantly makes up his mind to turn fortune hunter and marry a rich girl. 1 1 is wise friend says to him: "Move to a little dull town. "Dress very plainly and very elegantly. Don't drink, don't smoke, don't swear. "Go to church. Board with an old widow, if you can find one. "Have serious books and a large P.ible where everybody can see them on your table. "Don't laugh, don't smile. Don't pay any attention to young women, get a job and work hard. "hi every little town there's at least one girl worth a million. "You'll marry her. "I don't ask you to propose to her for her money. That would be dishonorable. "She'll propose to you ; then you accept her and marry her and give me back the five hundred dollars that I'm going to lend you and pay me a thousand dollars more." That is the beginning of the play, The Fortune Hunter, now running at the Gaiety Theatre on the corner of Broadway and Forty-Sixth street, says the New Yofk Journal. We occasionally advise our readers to go and see a good play — -we advise them to see The Fortune Hunter, and find out what happens to the young man who starts out to marry the richest girl in the small town. I'll'/ advice of the friend who lends the five hundred dollars works pcrfectlv. The richest girl in the town asks the voting fortune hunter to marry her. But the play has no such sordid end. The young man finds that hard work alone can make life worth while, and he finds that a simple, earnest girl, with no money, is a great deal better t!i; n money or anything else. I bis is a wholesome play, amusing, pleasing in its sentiment, thoroughly moral. It is admirably acted by'a good company. And the principal actor, John Barrvmore. can be, and will be. if he chooses, the most popular young man (jti the stage in this country or in England. I le is a man born to act; he obtains results and delights his audience by the most simple, natural methods. His grandmother, the mother of John Drew, was a famous actress. His father, Maurice Barrymore, was an actor of great power. His sister is label llarrvmore, and more important, lie himself is a young man destined to make a great success and a large fortune on the stage, if he makes up his mind that it is worth while to work hard to earn public approval. Men and women and boys and girls of all ages will like the play that we recommend today, and ought to see it. Young Mr. llarrvmore is a most pleasing individual, in looks and in real ability. Later we shall probably request our distinguished collaborators. Xcll Brinkley and Beatrice Fairfax, to analyze his personal charms, in pictures and in words. it is heartbreaking to think how many fluffy-haired young women are destined to dream and moon about this young man. But he can't help. that, and perhaps, after all, it does the fluffy-haired young people no real harm. They must dream of something. Some playwrights, some actors and some managers have an idea that New York wants plays vulgar or worse than vulgar. We predict for this excellent, moral Would You THE If You Had THE AND THE Time-Place-Girl Goto Garrick Theatre Week Starting October 24th VISIT W ITH Robert Pitkin AND Elizabeth Goodall V V AND THE SIXTY REAL ARTISTS V V Home Office B'JRBANK THEATRE BUILDING LOS ANGELES. CAL. Oliver Morosco's Plays Ready for Stock The Judge and the Jury The Halfbreed The Empress and the Soldier In South Car'liney Is the New Majestic a winner? Well, we guess yes MOROSCO'S BDRBANK THEATRE Los Angeles. Cal. " The Best in the West" The Leading Stock House. Hamburger^ M A JtSTICTheatre The Handsomest in the West Cost $300,000.00 Oliver Morosco, Lessee & Mfcr For time address John Cokt play a success so overwhelming as to prove that the good play is the thing that good citizens want, and that a majority of the citizens are good. The Art of Making Up James Ybuttg, the well known Sh-ikesperian actor, who is the ( rr» pheuin headHner in ( )akland this week, is the author of this hook of one' hundred and eighty pages. Many months of painstaking effort and expense were involved in securing the data necessary to form the material comprising the volume. The hook is educational in its purpose, being practical in every detail of the art of portraying character by means of paint, powder and wigs. ' Much of the material is given to the public in printed form for the first time. It is a hook every actor, whether he he a professional or whether he he an amateur, should have in his library. Locke of Wall Street Locke of Wall Street is an American play dealing with the manipulation of mining stocks by one George Locke of Butte, Montana, who by speculation has amassed a fortune. l«dith Locke (Miss Nether sole), a refined Southern woman, while teaching school in Montana, marries Locke, who was then actively engaged as an operative miner. Their change in fortune locates them in Xew York, where the action of the play occurs. Locke, to further a bearish action of the market in his favor, excites the miners to strike and succeeds by graft in having the militia tire Upon, the disgruntled ones. The strike leader, an old friend of Locke -and his wife, and once a suitor of the latter, comes to New York to settle the misunderstanding. From him, Mrs. Locke learns of her husband's business trickery. This discovery and a forgery committed by her degenerate brother, while speculating as Locke is, causes her to realize that her husband is little better than a thief. A separation is narrowly averted, partly through the influence of Locke's daughter and partly by the miner. Then Mrs. Locke destroys the business distinction between her husband and the strike leader, makes them meet on an equality, man to man, and reconciles them in a daring, highly dramatic and tangible feasible solution of the labor problem, that of practical co-operation. Kyrle Bell ew is Near to Death From Sneeze BUFFALO, Oct. 14.— That Kyrle Bellew did not bleed to death early today in his room at the Hotel Statler is one of the mysteries of the medical profession. Mr. Bellew ruptured a blood vessel of the nose while sneezing as the result of a cold and bled so much that he became alarmed and summoned his companion actor, Charles O'Connor, who had an adjoining room. Two physicians were sent for and with some difficulty stopped the bleeding. Mr. Bellew was in such a weakened condition that he was unable to leave his bed all day. Blanche Bates to Spade PORTLAND. Oct. 16.— Blanche Bates, protege of Devid Belasco and heroine of several of his plays, last week placed a daintily shod foot against a spade blade and turned the first sod in the construction of the new Heilig Theatre. The mayor, the council, the bondholders of the theatre corporation and a few hundred toffi lowers of the drama and admirers 01' the actress were the audience. Eight blocks away from the place where Miss Bates performed manual labor is a small ramshackle cottage. This was the birthplace of the actress not very much more than a quarter of a century ago. Miss Bates herself asked for permission to break ground for the new playhouse. The digging was done with no ordinary spade. Portland wood formed the handle. Oregon gold plated the blade. Excavation for the theatre's foundations began immediately after the ceremony. The Heilig is situated at Seventh and Taylor streets, and will cost Si 50.000. Helen Redmond, leading woman with Joe Weber in his travesty. The Merry Widow and The Devil, is a great beauty and one of the most popular women who has ever sung in musical productions. Two years' ago Miss Redmond married a wealthy physician and decided to re-, tire from the stage. Like so many actresses who have formed similar^ decisions, she found the call of the" footlights too strong to resist and; as the "widow" in the Weber production she is adding to her pa;jt. successes. J I Hotel St. James „^^nn^^Cor' Van Ness Ave. and Fulton St. IS A asl^a 3 a b 1 a a 5 m San Francisco' callfornia 5f Jp nfe"! flBanHH^BB Headquarters for Agents and Managers Half Block from Van Ness Theatre. Friars meet at the St. James every Friday night. F. P. SHANLEY, Manager, formerly of New York