San Francisco dramatic review (1899)

14 THE SAN FRANCISCO DRAMATIC REVIEW March 3, 1900 For in his ravings by mistake, A solemn truth the madman spake. * * How careful a playwright should be of references to the surroundings of his people. It is a terrible thing to have "And now I miut leave this beautiful home," bump up against the remarkable interior decorating and house furnishing we have so insistently forced upon us. Truly these interiors are acts in themselves and at seven days' distance, the echoes of them still remain. They are a mob, and we let them again into our vision when they knock, much as the Grand Usher did the mob to the palace "not finding it convenient to refuse." The rooms cannot be said to bear their chronology with them for the frugality of a single period — Kmpite, Colonial or Renaissance is not to be thought of, when one may have all three and several others classified. No wonder young stage couples quarrel. Such surroundings would nourish the fighting temper of lambs. * * * A Sad StoryAdvance man with the iron jaw, Gay posters by the score, A shower of handbills — photographs, Press notices galore. On Monday night, the curtain rise, With not a vacant row, And later on, the curtain fall — That's all. There was no show. L'Envoi The critic writes a proper "roast," The actors (?) pale and wince, The public reads with chops and toast, No audiences since. * * And the story is old, yet ever new, and why does the itinerant manager not take warning? I believe in my soul that these managers do not know a good show from a bad one and come into this town with their amateurs and their bad bundles of obvious exits and entrances, called plays, joyous and expectant as children and oh, the aftermath. It cannot be that they liken us in their minds to — "The boy who was so very green, It strangely came to pass, The cows came up and ate him, For they thought that he was grass." Bring us a good performance and no matter what the price, big audiences will follow as naturally as eating does an appetite or explosion a torch. Mr. Manager, wherever you are, if your show is not a worthy one, keep to the hills and trenches, for we believe that the right to live has limits, and that a man should see that he earns a livelihood as well as that he gets it. * * What a dainty little bit of Dresden, Laura Crews, of the Alcazar, is this week. There is a freshness and purity and ingeniousness about her that will keep her young though the years she have be multiplied by three. When one looks at her wealth of sunny hair, respect for the tenth commandment is not possible. I would like to be a wild-flowery wind of May and go ablowing through it just for pastime. * * * The Development of the Great Orpheum Circuit The vaudeville horizon is so rapidly widening, that the possibilities of its future sweep are limitless. Tony Pastor was perhaps the first to offer the public what is now common enough in our midst — the first-class attraction. Stars of undisputed cleverness, of acknowledged and applauded dramatic ability, forsook the legitimate and other fields at his beckoning, to the horror of critics and the despair of their admirers. But one cannot live on admiration and many of the stars who were crowded out of the dramatic heavens by the elbows of the more pushing but less gifted twinklers, answered the beck for need. The success of his venture was instantaneous and managers with an eye to the future followed the lead closely, thus raising salaries and bidding effectually for the best. Patrons of the high class drama shivered and drew back their skirts from the doors that led to beer and pipes and the ultimate deterioration of the stage. I say skirts with reason, for the trouser legs were not conspicuous by their absence. They walked in and on and filled the seats and if there were some dull spots in the evening they were well chalked out by artists who sketched with greater power. And the evolution of the vaudeville went on, in spite of impediments and grim predictions. Attractions are now so worthy, so entirely good and clean, that the most conservative are yielding and bestowing their patronage. The few who still hold back because of "form you know" and because there are cigars and the like might find that a little fumigation would do them good. This is a century of specialists, from the highest profession to the lowest. Of course it is an open question whether a man's genius can, in this way, be compelled to yield what it contains. Yet if cultivating a specialty to the utmost yields a large weekly salary in return for a twenty minutes' performance, will you choose instead the drudgery of stock work with seldom a part to your taste? Indeed you will not. It rests with our public to make of our vaudeville stage what it will, for the Orpheum management gives the public credit for knowing a little more than it does, and finds its future attractions by the light of applause and comment. Hence it makes few mistakes in catering. Let us then applaud the best, encourage the artistic, but remember the while that the vaudeville stage is a big world to be taken hold of with many hands, and the fact that you and I cannot appreciate it all, may possibly be an evidence of something lacking in us. "What is this Orpheum Circuit?" said a friend to me. "Is it a great roulette table, and are these specialists the arrows, stopping for a biief moment on the red or the black, gaining or losing for the croupier as the ease may be ?" The growth of the circuit is astonishing and one of the secrets of its present reach is liberality. No attraction is too good or too high priced for its patrons and a narrow commercialism has nothing in common with its workings. Do not mistake me. Mr. M. Myerfeld, Jr., President of the Orpheum Circuit, is a man of thorough commercial insight and sees to it that a sound business basis supports the enterprise. There is no reason, however, why business ability and liberality should be at odds and Mr. Myerfeld is called one of the most liberal men in the vaudeville field. But there is nothing so convincing to a business man as facts. These he will have and these he builds upon and hence success. His trips East are all made with a purpose and the Orpheum influence is hardly realized by those who reap its benefits as the entertained. With its elbows in San Francisco and its busy fingers in a dozen other big cities, it is gathering unto itself, slowly but surely, the best in the vaudeville world. And let me repeat it — its liberality is the foundation of its success. I am told that no artist is worth less than $150 a week and that the minimum runs easily up the scale to five and six hundred and in some cases an importation has been said to touch the $1000 limit. When one adds railroad fares and considers the prices of admission, one wonders how the outlay is covered, with a lapover for those interested. Do we ever pause to consider that New York vaudeville is offered at $1.50 and $2.00 a seat, and are we properly grateful ? Besides the home office, there are three other houses — in Los Angeles, in Omaha, and in Kansas City and two more about to be added — in New Orleans and in Denver. And the end is not yet. The limit of its ambition is the limit of what it can get. The advantage of this reach is apparent. Long engagements can be offered and the best talent more easily secured. Then, too, no attraction need be held in a town beyond the week, except on positive demand. Even now the Orpheum works with other circuits — Kohl and Castle of Chicago for instance and the Hopkins Circuit. They have agents in New York and Chicago and even in Lon don, Paris and Berlin. They are hence in touch with everything that goes on in the vaudeville world, and ready to beckon it their way. Bookings are often made three years ahead and a very nice calculation is needed to avoid hitches and make the program a varied one. John Morrisey, the manager, is ever on the watch, and no one can feel the public pulse and prescribe the necessary draught with a better grace than he. He was a vaudeville artist himself at one time, in the days when, to