Variety (February 1909)

VARIETY 19 ROSE HILL ENGLISH FOLLY. There isn't much to talk about in the second Rice & Barton show to play New York, this teason, outside of the olio. ("Rose Hill English Folly Co."). At Hyde & Behman's Olympic, Brook- lyn last week, following three corking good burlesque organisations, as they run ("Trans-Atlantics," Irwin's "Big Show" and "Majesties"), the Rice & Barton ag- gregation played to good business. The piece is "The Knights of the Red Garter," another name for "The Pink Dominoes." It has been in use before by many. "Mark Mooney" and "MoSweeney" are the Irishmen in the persons of T. F. Thomas and Geo. W. Rice, neither one ap- plying a Celtic tinge to his speech. Their play-wives are also there. John E. Cain is the actual "Irishman" in the role of a butler. The usual "Hebrew,", "Dutch- man," "blackface" and "cissy" are absent. There are eighteen or twenty lifeless and listless women, headed by (program) "Miss Idylla Vyner." The other prin- cipal females are minus the "Miss." Per- haps Miss Vyner' fears the audience will imagine she is married. The contributions of Miss Vyner's in- cluded a toe-dance, leading "Dixie Dan" and wearing tights in the finale of the sec- ond act, the latter about the best thing in the piece through its singing arrange- ment. Of the attempts by Miss Vyner, the wearing of tights is the best. Blanche Newcombe looms up as a housemaid amidst the crowd of women around, of all sizes, shapes and looks. She sang "Be Sweet to Me, Kid," with a good idea o{ it, and in a "kid" speciality opening the olio, Miss Newcombe looked very cute and pretty in her boy-sailor suit of blue, singing three songs. The young woman is a likable "kid," and should go in for "kid" songs only, having one especially written for her with a touch of spice. That might replace "The Songs That Used to Be." "A Good Night's Rest," played by John E. Cain in blackface with a couple of assistants, is an old-time afterpiece, bring- ing laughter through Cain's excellent "coon." Cook and Sylvia received lots of ap- plause for Mr. Cook's dancing, while the Four Londons in a casting act were the big item. The Londons are doing some remarkable throwing and catching, the black-haired catcher particularly being certain, while the "fliers" are among the best. Doubles to a hand-catch are fre- quent. There is some new foot work, and it is very prettily executed. In the piece an octet is well handled by four of the men and an equal number of the girls, while there is an odd dress- ing scheme in "A Little Bit is Better Than Nothing at All" (taken from that title). "Living pictures" are posed by Catherine York. Between the first two acts some tire- some "stalling" is indulged in, and in a "dressy" number, one of the girls has taken the design of a gown from the Anna Held show. Otherwise the "Rose Hill Folly" is the same show which has been seen by bur- lesque patrons often, with a certain amount of credit going to Mr. Rice for his ever-blooming youth. Sime. Mayme Remington and her 'Ticks" play the Orpheum, Boston, next week. BIJOU, BROOKLYN. This week marks the entrance of the Bijou, Hyde & Behman's property, into the ranks of the 10-20-80 vaudeville and moving picture theatres, which have in- creased so enormously in number in the east during the last few months. Like a great many of the others the Bijou aban- dons a policy of melodrama, having for- merly placed Star ft Havlin attractions. The house is an extremely cosy one, seating perhaps 1,500 persons. Under the new policy it plays six vaudeville acts twice daily, with an illustrated song singer doing two turns in each show. Two reels of moving pictures open the show, another reel is run off about the middle of the performance and a fourth reel puts a period to the proceedings. Wednesday night the audience filled about half the capacity. The entertainment has a good deal more the complexion of a real vaudeville show than the offering at the Columbia, play- ing the same style of attraction half a mile or so down Fulton Street There is a certain snap and speed to this week's bill, although, of course, all the acts are small ones, excepting Nick Long and Idalene Cotton (headliners). None of the acts drags. Several of them occupied only about twelve minutes or so. It all runs to comedy. Let it be said at once that the Bijou audience wants its comedy undisguised by delicacy. It can't come too rough for them. They take eas- ily also to freak effects and sentiment in allopathic doses. One of the hits of the bill this week is a number on an xylophone arrangement made out of tin cans. The effect was about as close an approach to melody as "Salome" is to art, but the house accepted it with delight that was refreshingly childlike. They are even more ingenuous and less sophisticated than Harry Leonhardt's Yonkers clientele. The two opening pictures clear the way for the vaudeville acts about 8:30 in the evening and the show is over by 11 o'clock, including two songs and two reels of pictures, so the six acts have not a great deal of time to occupy the stage. This makes for a good show and has all sorts of advantages over the Columbia sys- tem of sending acts out to kill time by any expedient. La Rose Bros., knockabout acrobats, open the show. They spend too much time "stalling," but when they do get down to work manage to put over a fairly amus- ing routine of slapstick stuff and comedy falls. One dresses as a Chinaman, the other as a clown with chalk makeup. Rosco and Sims were No. 3. They have a rather old-fashioned musical act, although the comedian, in blackface, does manage to hold down a comedy role in capable fashion. They have lately bought fresh velvet hangings for their parapher- nalia. It was in this number that the tin-can xylophone scored the "riot" The straight man dresses an as Englishman, with Dundreary whiskers. But there is nothing in his dialect to indicate that he does not hail from Buffalo. They simply ate up Long and Cotton's very dramatic sermon "The Banker and the Thief," and fell for Mark Bennett, the illustrated singer, who picked ballads to match a soulful tenor voice with one of those throaty sobs as an "effect." Others on the bill were Gertie Everett, Gilroy and Church and De Dio Pony Cir- cus, all under New Acts. Rush. COLUMBIA. It's a very poor brand of vaudeville that they are dishing up at the Columbia this week. The house was very light on Wednesday, and it may be just possible that poor shows will kill business in a "ten-twenty" house as well as in the better class theatres. The matter of kill- ing off the patrons is of no great moment here any way, for if the poor bills that are presented won't do it, certainly the fifty-seven different drafts that go rush- ing through the place will. Every time the olio drop went up it was like going into a blizzard. * Three reels of pictures and two illus- trated songs, together with eight acts, help to lengthen the show out into a three-hour entertainment. Two of the eight acts billed did not appear, and as they happened to be the features and novelties, it made the program a bit awkward. Noodles Fagan, Jennie Ward, Bohemian Trio, Pilzer and White, who re- placed "Reincarnation," and The Mosmo Arab Troupe are under New Acts. Gillette and Hallihan opened the show with a "kid" bit that did very nicely. The talk could be propped up a little in places, but there is not a great deal of it, and there is no harm done. The singing is a bit trying, due mainly to Miss Hallihan's efforts to be heard all over the house. The dancing, of which there should be a great deal more, is all that it should be. Miss Hallihan makes-up here for the few off notes, although she doesn't dance nearly enough. Any part of the specialty could be sacrificed for more of the danc- ing, and no time should be lost in doing it. Luce and Luce replaced Humanus, the Mystery. There was no mystery about Luce and Luce; they simply did their turn and let it go at that. The act is a quiet, entertaining musical number, with- out any doubt, too quiet for the Columbia, where the red nose and the elastic are still the two funniest things that were ever thought of. The violin imitations were what pleased. This was a sure thing from the beginning. Mr. Luce first an- nounces an imitation on the cornet of an army bugle. When the simple announce- ment got a hand, you can picture what they would do to the "Old Church Organ." Miss Luce is wearing two very becoming and pretty new gowns. "Fun on a Trolley," the old Bob Dailey act without Mr. Dailey or any of the other of the principals, with the possible ex- ceptions of the "drunk," filled in an eight- een-minute rough house without uncover- ing anything particularly funny. All there ever was to the act was Bob Dailey, and, although the man who is taking his place works hard, he cannot carry it through. The act remains practically with the same number of characters and the same business. Dash. TWO BILLIES PANTOMIME. Boston, Feb. 4. The Two Billies, of "The Folies of 1008," Billie Reeves and Billie Schrode, have in preparation a big pantomime pro- duction for vaudeville, which will be pre- sented for five weeks commencing in April, before the promoters take part in the new show for the New York Roof this summer. FIFTH AVENUE. Most unusual is the selection of this week's show at the Fifth Avenue. Of the first four numbers three are comedy sketches, two involving musical and danc- ing incidentals, while the other leans toward the talking farce. Taking the re- sponse of the audience as the test the selection worked out very welL Added to the three sketches, a tabloid version of "The County Fair" (New Acts) closed the show. The bill is pretty generally pro- vided with comedy values, and it was due to this in a large, degree that it made satisfactory entertainment. Cameron and Flanagan gave their familiar "On and Off" to solid applause. "Back stage" affairs have received atten- tion frequently in vaudeville, but, with perhaps the exception of Rose Stahl's "Chorus Lady, ;: no more faithful stage type has been drawn than that of this team's "hicks." The novelty of the ar- rangement recommends "On and Off" im- mediately, and the capital, easy acting of the pair drives their characterizations home. Lily Lena has several new songs and five costume changes that are marvels of celer- ity. How she manages to leap from one pretty frock into another quite as neat without disturbing her easy poise is one of those deep dark dressing rom mysteries. Five songs made up her offering this week. The comedienne goes in for pretty melo- dies and sparkling lyrics rather than for burlesque effects and risque points. Only one verse of her next to closing song ap- proaches "blueness," and that was easily forgivable on the score of its cleverness. For a single singing turn in "one" Miss Lena gets an unusual degree of speed ami action into her allotted twenty minutes. On Monday night she had to signal "no more" to the orchestra leader before the audience would be satisfied. Bert Coote and Co., were a laughing success in "A Lamb on Wall Street." Mr. Coote'B Englishman who delivers utterly assinine speeches with an air of swelling importance is a ridiculous figure and car- ries the sketch. Melville Ellis gave his quiet smooth en- tertainment unchanged. The house liked his "musical omelet," as he calls the improvised medley of operatic and popu- lar airs. For the finish the pianist plays "Yama-Yama" with a maze of be-frilled and be-ruffled improvisations that won him substantial applause. The Empire Comedy Four return after a considerable absence. The makeup of the act is about the same. The by-play between the "Dutchman" and "Cissy" is not as prominent as it used to be and the quartet seem to be giving less of the old knockabout, although there is still a good deal of that. Their clowning is mostly in the early part. Toward the finish they go in for straight singing and get away to real applause. They are next to closing the show this week. Viola DeCosta and Co. opened the pro- ceedings with the dancing and singing sketch "In the Latin Quarter," and despite the spot passed. Maude and Gladys Finney, New Acts. Ruth. Stuart Leslie, an English singer of songs, will probably be placed on the Morris time. The Wheelers, comedy jugglers, and the Goldie Makaranko Troupe of Russian- danceTS. joined "The Casino Girls" at Philadelphia this wrek.