Variety (February 1909)

18 VARIETY THE OBtL FBOM RECTOR'S. ▲ girl from Battle Creek is the big noise in "The Girl From Rector's," a very Frenchy farce presented for the first time In New York on Monday evening, and once before that at Trenton, N. J. A little publicity with "police" plenti- fully sprinkled about it is a good thing for the box office. The Weber Music Hall isn't a large house, and the standees bulged the back walls, while a squad of blue coats had to disperse the clamoring crowd for admission tickets in the lobby, ^ho would ever have, suspected that pHtf.' fritter, in taking the piece from the' French, would hare localised it so far as to hit upon Battle Greek. That's one small trouble with the Rector Girl. She has been overlocalized, although the last act was allowed to go as it lay. That last act (there are four) is a screamer. After seeing it, one cant de- cide whether to climb up on the fleg- polejtf purity or just laugh. The laugh is the best, for, after the vile, indecent and unlicensed dialog of "The Easiest Way," what is there left? New Yorkers apparently want their stage goods "raw." They are getting what they want. There's but one thing left to show on the stage after the final scene of "The Girl From Rector's." Still, it is funny, and as for that, the piece is amusing throughout. The trouble Mon- day evening was the first-nighters had had their moral appetites prepared for "dirt," and it didn't show quickly enough, excepting in small snatches of dialog, which could have been much worse, and would have had to be to reach the quality of one of the mildest lines in "The Easi- est Way" which reads like this: "Well, Jerry is good to me. Of course, he is old, but he likes me. You can just bet your sweet life though, Laura, that if Jerry isnt there with his little old check every Saturday night, there's a new lock on the door Sunday morning." That's a really mild outburst of Tenderloin secrets in "The Easiest Way." So what matter what is done in "The Girl From Rector's" or any other show as long as they don't "pull a circus"? The stage is growing pretty close to that Parkhurst discovery, however, and who can tell? When you "pan" the "Salome," "Apache" and "Cooch" dancers in vaude- ville hereafter, apologize, for they are only little mites on the immoral wave spreading in a death-like pall over The- atredom. It looked as though something were coming off when the program announced the fourth and last sceen as 'Trench Charley's Road House." It was a decent looking road house. There were three tables set in the large room, while off- side were bed or private rooms, num- bered from 22 to 26. The entire story led up to this situa- tion. Loute -Sedaine, in Rector's, was Mrs. Judge Oaperton in Battle Creek. All the Battle Creekers were ready to make affidavit that the Mrs. Judge was a "per- fect lady," and the best of the best in Michigan, although she did take long trips away. During these trips, she was "Loute" on Broadway, and the "particular friend" of Richard CSheughneasy, a young bache- lor, having for his chum Ool. Andy Tandy, who afterwards develops to be the second husband of Mrs. Wltherspoon Copley, the leader of Battle Creek society. Mrs. Copley believes her husband in the West Indies looking after his plantations, but Col. Andy instead is trying to "cop" Loute away from "Dickeybird" CShaugh- nessy. Loute may be taking chances, but she's "on the level" with Richard, and Andy says so, even while "making the Richard has a cousin, Prof. Aubrey Maboon, a Chicago University instructor (sufficient indictment), who is engaged to Mrs. Copley's daughter by her first spouse. Marcia Singleton is the daugh- ter. She, her mother and the Professor come to New York to see the sights. The Professor prefers Y. M. O. A. lectures to the Lively Lane, and the daughter kicks over the traces. She wants a live one. Meeting Richard, who looks pretty good to her, they become engaged. Richard almost tells Loute she's flagged, and Loute goes back to Battle Creole Tandy digs out for home on his return date, and he heads for Battle Creek. Mrs. Copley and her daughter, with Richard, arrange for the marriage, and they all go back to Battle Creek, where it is to happen. Everybody meets in Mrs. Copley's house, and there's a fine how-d'-do. Mrs. Copley, to punish her intended son-in-law for what she thinks is merely an over- indulgence in wine, frames-up the "road house" episode. It works nicely, and all the principals are gathered in the tavern. Richard be- comes surprised and displeased, and leaves. The party breaks up with the women an- nouncing they shall remain over night in the house, while the men must go home, although Mrs. Copley informs her hus- band, Tandy, on the quiet, that her room is 26 and he must return. He does, so does Judge Oaperton, who, by mistake, goes in room 22, occupied by Angelica, the maid, while Loute is alone in 24. Richard returns and finds Marcia, with whom he has passed through a civil ceremony the day before, and Richard, saying the civil thing is enough, enters room 26 with her. (All lights down.) The Professor returns to the road house looking for revenge. He is quite sure that Richard is with Loute, so he hammers upon a cymbal, making sufficient noise to arouse the dead. But no one appears. The four rooms are silent. They remain silent. The house laughs. Professor hits the cymbal again. More silence. More laughter. Then Professor hammers it good and plenty. This time the couples show up. Tandy and his wife in pajamas and night gowns; Richard and his wife; Judge Caperon and the maid, the Judge protesting "everything has been all right" although the maid had previously in- formed the Judge when asked the way to her room "that it was up a church aisle with a marriage certificate in one hand." The final scene of "The Girl From Rec- tor's" sounds like the finish of a Bo- caccio story. Nothing could be broader; nothing more suggestive, and all deficien- cies are supplied by the night-dress bri- gade upon appearance. So what's the use of being sore? You have to laugh in the theatre at it; why not laugh outside? And as we remarked before, "The Easiest Way" and "The Girl From Rector's" clean up on every- thing and every thought to just one cer- tain point. (Continued on page 22.) THE MAJESTICS. T o that divi sion of burlesque managers who take as their excuse for mediocre shows the system that "profits count) not gross receipts," Fred Irwin's "Majesties" should be an object lesson. Irwin started the season under the most adverse con- ditions, opening with an expensive organi- sation, and just at the point where the business ahead was notoriously poor. But he stuck to the principle of playing large receipts against a large payroll through discouragement and loss. Now that he is playing the good time, things are coming his way. The Murray Hill week witnessed turn-away after turn- away, and the show scored the high record for that house. Anyone who looked over the capacity audiences during the engage- ment could have no lingering doubt but that the Irwin system was vindicated. "The Majesties" is a great big show. Bigness is not its only characteristic. It has novelty, cleverness and varied enter- tainment to a degree most unusual in Wheel productions. Anybody can collect a big show, but when a mass of material is laid out to best advantage the result is a real achievement. Another item that is worth considering is that Irwin has had his burlesque audience in mind all the time. The proceedings at no time become oppressively polite, the aim seemingly be- ing to keep up a swift pace of alternating comedy "bits," brilliant numbers and stage pictures and picturesque incidents. To take one detail as indicating the gen- eral "class" of the offering, there are eight chorus men in the company of forty-eight or so. Chorus men, too, who act like human beings, sing as well as an average male quartet and dress like the Broadway musical comedy kind. Who ever heard of such reckless extravagance in a burlesque organization ? The list of women principals is so long that, in the rush of the show, it is not easy to identify the individuals, but the general effect of bright costuming, pleas- ing faces, singing ability and brilliant dressing commands attention. Individual excellence is sacrificed to the ensemble. There are seven scenes in the two-act piece called "Americans in Paris." The show opens under full speed, with thirty or so choristers engaged in a dance of whirlwind color and motion. Almost with- out a pause in the music a snappy octet of "ponies" takes the centre of the stage for a bright, speedy number, while the rest of the girls stand about and help to work up the effect of riotous movement. The comedians (Joe Hollander and Gus Faye), both Germans, have their first inning shortly after this. Then comes another number (a French chanson, by Mile. D'Arcos and the chorus) and another bit of nonsense by the comedians. Before the audience begins to suspect that the show has already been running twenty- five minutes, the whole company goes into a splendidly handled operatic medley that makes the flr«.*c "The Majesties" bears thi Irwin trade- mark in its excellence as a singing organi- sation. There is not a jarring note in the big chorus effects, and the finale was a revelation in ensemble singing. It is possible that the chorus was too constantly in evidence during this scene. The girls were on the stage almost with- out intermission., and too much of a good thing was in the way of becoming a bore. For this reason the next number, done in a street scene in "one" by the fifteen men, was perfectly timed. Outside of be- ing an immensely effective number on its merits, it effectually dispelled the impres- sion of superabundance of girls. "I'm Thirsty All the Time" was the title, music and lyrics being by Joe Hollander, who has provided the piece with an original score of exceptional merit. Joe Bonner led in capital makeup as a comedy "drunk," while the others simulated vari- ous degrees of intoxication, and Hol- lander and Faye worked in an occasional laugh on their own account. Well sung and admirably handled, the number scored one of the hits of the evening. The second scene was a duplicate of the first as concerned its elaborate sta*e pic- tures and generous "giriiness." It opened with another medley of familiar opera airs, led by an unidentified soprano who did not appear again. She had a strik- ingly sweet voice, and uncovered a top note that is as rare in burlesque as a show like the "Majesties." This scene wound up with a short series of imper- sonations, including Marie Hartman as Eva Tanguay (rather wide of the mark); Roy Cummings as George M. Cohan, and Edith Hollander in a neat little dance. Hollander and Faye filled in an interval in "one" with a German dialect bit, involv- ing the exchange of a pitcher of beer a la Kolb and Dill and others before them, and the curtain rose on a woodland scene in which Edith Shaw and Anna Meek, two stalwart showgirls, reduced themselves to negligee above the waist line and fought a duel, presently to be burlesqued by Faye, Hollander and Ernest Rackett (Ernest and Clara Rackett). Another return to "one" entertainingly filled in by Faye and two of the girls in a capital line of stage slang dialog, pre- ceded a prison scene in which the men of the company clowned about and won gen- erous laughs. A song by the male chorus would not have been amiss here, although the laughs were frequent and hearty, and the earlier part had been somewhat short on comedy. The Peerless Quartet officiated again while a change of scene was made. The four sing nicely enough, but they are fear- fully old in the selection of songs, running to imitations of bells, banjo, steamboat whistles and the like. They attempted no comedy, however, and so their minor fail- ings were easily forgivable. The great big, undoubted hit of the last act was the specialty of The Racketts, "Fitz in Evening Dress," introduced dur- ing the action. Miss Rackett had long since taken the lead of the women prin- cipals by her charmingly graceful stage presence and breezy way, and had estab- lished herself firmly with the house, but Mr. Rackett had been all but buried under a "straight" role. It took only an instant to put him in prime favor, and both the couple's songs drew down encore after encore, practically holding the show up at 10.40. Evelyn Walker did extremely well in the same act, singing "The Best of Friends Must Part," a catchy ballad, and Miss Rackett had a delightful comedy scene with Faye. A "Salome" dance, also by Miss Rackett, with special setting, was the elose of the best, brightest and biggest show traveling the Eastern Wheel this season. Ruth.