San Francisco dramatic review (1899)

THE SAN FRANCISCO DRAMATIC REVIEW October 23, 1909. Fernanda Eliscu in Charles Klein's latest play, The Third Degree, now playing at the Van Ness Theatre Margaret Illington Applies for Her Divorce RENO, Oct. 18.— Margaret Illington, wife of Daniel Frohman, today filed a complaint for divorce in the Reno District Court. She alleges failure to provide. Mrs. Daniel Frohman surprised the theatrical world last February by declaring that she hated the stage, intended to retire to a life of domesticity, and would get a divorce from her manager-husband. Soon after she took up her residence in this city. At the time of the announcement of the impending divorce action, E. J. Bowes, a wealthy young real estate operator and San Francisco clubman, was prominently mentioned as Daniel Frohman's ultimate successor, and Miss Illington did not deny the accuracy of the report. Daniel Frohman, in an interview telegraphed from New York, said that he knew all about his wife's intentions, that they had conferred together and reached an amicable agreement, and that Bowes was a nice young man. Mrs. Frohman in her declared preference for a life of domesticity, went so far as to assert that she would rather darn her husband's socks than score the biggest possible success on the stage. At the time of abandoning the foot lights she was starring profitably in The Thief and had won recognition as a player of decided force and ability. The Orpheum The Orpheum's program for next week maintains the highest standard of vaudeville and includes several acts that have recently created a furore in the old world. Mile. Bianci who with her company of terpsichorean artists heads the bill, is the leading exponent of the classic dance in Europe. For her engagement in this city she has designed four numbers which exhibit her grace, skill and versatility to the greatest advantage. She has named them the Dresden China Dance, Egyptian. La Dance En Volant, and Satanella. Hal Godfrey and his company will present the diverting skit, A Very Bad Boy. Mr. Godfrey is an able dramatist and an exceptionally clever character comedian. Keno, Walsh and Melrose, famous comedy gymnasts, can always be depended upon to provide something novel. This season they are appearing in what they term The Revolving Arch. General Edward La Vine, who will be in amusing evidence in his unique comedv juggling act, is styled The Man Who Has Soldiered All His Life. The stage setting for his act is a battlefield and in his burlesque of a sol dier, preliminary to his juggling, he is excruciatingly funny. Next week will be the last of Howard and Howard, Martinettic and Sylvester, the Boys with the Chairs ; Ballerini's Canine Tumblers, and that clever and enjoyable light comedian, George Bloomquest, in his merry farce, Nerve. A new series of motion pictures will conclude one of the best entertainments of its kind ever offered in this city. Alcazar Theatre For the first time by a stock company anywhere, Becky Sharp will be presented next Monday evening and throughout the week in the Alcazar. As its title indicates, the play is founded on Thackeray's Vanity Fair, dealing with the adventures of the woman who is the very life of that famous novel. She is the most irresistible adventuress in all the pages of English literature. Langdon Mitchell made the adaptation expressly for Mrs. Fiske, who appeared in it ten years ago at the California Theatre, where it ran three weeks at unusually high prices. In the Alcazar production Evelyn Vaughan will have the title part, which she has been studying a month. In the play there are four acts, thirty-five speaking characters and many supernumeraries. Mr. Mitchell has constructed a work that is sprightly in humor, graphic in illuminative detail, picturesque in action and true to literary ideals of the highest kind. Other portrayals will be that of Rawdon Crawley by Will R. Walling the Marquis of Steyne by Louis Bennison, Sir Pitt Crawley by Charles Dow Clark, Pitt Crawley, Jr., by Howard Hickman, Lieutenant Dobbin by James Corrigan, Major Loder by George Baldwin, Amelia Osborne by Bessie Barriscale, Miss Crawley by Adele Belgarde, the Marchioness of Steyne by Christie MacLean, Lady Jane by Grace Travers and Briggs by Anne Lockhardt. Sumptuous staging is made admissible by the places (London and Brussels), the period (1815-28) and the people (mostly aristocrats) of the play. The first act takes place at Miss Crawley's residence in Park Lane, the second at the Duchess of Richmond's ball in Brussels on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo, the third act at Becky's house in Mayfair, and the fourth at her lodgings in Pumpernickel. The ball-room scene — made famous by Byron's poem— will be the most elaborate and beautiful ever presented in the Alcazar, where some magnificent stage pictures have been witnessed. Valencia Theatre The Ringmaster, a drama of intrigue and graft on Wall Street, will begin its second and last week this Sunday evening, with the usual matinees on Wednesday and Saturday. The first work of Olive Porter, a young New Yorker, holds the interest firmly by the force of its appeal to the elementary human love of a contest, to the working out of opposing ideals and to seeing somebody get the better of somebody else. In it there is enough quick action, excitement and love to satisfy the most ardent devotee of melodramatic entertainment, and the third act, particularly, where young LeBaron, played by H. S. Northrup, secures sufficient of the stock of the railroad to defeat the proposed combine, is intensely dramatic with its stock office atmosphere, telephone conversations and surprising situations, the climax leading up to a point where the tension is of the keenest. The second act, which takes place on board the steam yacht, Nomadic, is full of novel effects and in it wireless telegraphy plays a most important part. The same scale of prices, ranging from one dollar to twenty-five cents, will prevail as during Portola week. Eddie Foy, undoubtedly America's greatest musical comedian, with a company of seventyfive, will appear in Mr. Hamlet of Broadway at the Valencia Theatre, commencing Sunday night, October 31. There are many stranger things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy," said Hamlet to his friend, and Eddie Foy's Hamlet is one of them. It is the strangest Hamlet that the stage has ever seen and that it is the funniest goes without saying. LEVY'S BIG TRUNK STORE I N CO R PO R AT ED COAST AGENTS Taylor Trunks fiSiT M.irLct *st °m> gimral repairing UO/ ITIdl IVCl 01., O.I .Kearny phone Bou„|as 3192 Nany ang Industrial Exposition Nanking, China MAY TO NOVEMBER. 1910 China's First National Exposition One Hundred Million Population within Radius of One Hundred Miles ONLY TEN SHOWS ON THE MIDWAY Thirty per cent. You erect buildings. Can arrange to work the great MANILA CARNIVAL, February 7th to 17th, 1910. If you cable, prepay answer. Address, GEORGE MOOSER Representative P. O. Box 623, American Consulate, SHANGHAI Cable Address, MOOSER, SHANGHAI. Novelty Theatre, San Francisco TO RENT By the day, week or month. Fine, comfortable theatre, seating 1,200 people. Large stage. SPECIALLY ADAPTED TO POIJTICAL MEETINGS