San Francisco dramatic review (1899)

u THE SAN FRANCISCO DRAMATIC REVIEW April 28, 1900 And in his ravines by mistake A solemn truth the madman spake. A HINT TO THE SUNDAY EDITOR. With his finger of necessity on the popular pulse, the Sunday editor gives weekly, big doses of illustrations and yet what ails us doesn't seem to get better. I have an idea. Give the poor worn out actress a rest. She has been posing in your spring, summer and autumn hats, caps and gowns that don't fit and seldom become until she has earned a conge. I know one young woman who is writing a melancholy hymn about it for vaudeville. Now give the men a chance. The newest in trousers — poses by Sir Henry Irving; the swellest tie — poses by Nat Goodwin; spring shirts — poses by Henry Miller; golf gaiters — poses by Otis Skinner; how to eat pie — poses by Joseph Jefferson; how not to eat pie — poses by several people; how to mix cocktails — poses by — well, guess. And so on — it might spread over weeks of issues. It's a mine. Prospect it. • * * WORDS. If there is a man sitting lazily out in the future capable of writing good sketches, reach out the vaudeville arm now and nab him. We of today are quite as worthy as posterity and those we see are mocks of hope. Not all of them. Some exceptions point the way, but it .is a rocky road to Dublin and very slippery. * * * Mr. Fiske of the Dramatic Mirror, in a talk with Mr. Neill about newspaper criticism, says that by careful study he has found that worthy attractions lose nothing by being slated. Those who read and stay away on Tuesday, find out the truth from their neighbors and crowd in later in the week. Compensation always follows merit and no scornful little press bullets ever kill a play or performance born to live. Neither will press booming make a bad matter better. A good job too. * Florence Roberts' jewels are wandering home, one by one, at the beckon of large rewards, so it is just possible that Camille will not have to be simple and unadorned. They are black and twisted and sorry looking and have not found the "roasting" incident to professional life at all agreeable. They have stood it, though, and are as valuable as ever. Nance O' Neil's Australian reception gives me that hideous "I told you so" feeling. She is playing to capacity, and from what the papers say, the word ovation is not strong enough to describe the applause. Now if some man of parts would just write a play around her and stage it in New York, surrounding her with a picked company, her fortune would be made — and incidentally, his. TO THE MATINEE GIRL. (With abject apologies to Kipling. I O, dainty maid, why make your prayer, (That you do you can't deny,) To a row of teeth and some going hair, Some linen and ties and a knowing air, You call him a hero — he's not so there ! (That you do you can't deny.) O, the ink you waste, and the think you waste. And the notes in a school-girl hand, You send to the man who only knows How to speak his lines and dress and pose. You're a fool— do you understand ? THE NEILL COMPANY. Only the very young and pure in heart can have entire faith in the assurances of the advance man, and in his fence posters and glad rags that paint the town red. The poster man who cannot out-color and out-letter facts is no artist and lacks a decent dog's sense of opportunity. He is as rare as a white cow. Most advance men are beautiful liars. I am fully conscious that I am writing these words and all they implicate. It is terrible to promise figure in the ballet and have it hop in on meagre shanks. It is terrible, it is wicked to lie and it is not necessary, Witness the Neill Company. They came in quietly, unheralded, save by the most artistic and refined poster that has adorned our fences this many a day, and they have easily and quietly walked straight into our hearts. Whoever is responsible for that poster was born right and deserves to be told so. And the company lives up to its poster. Simplicity of idea and treatment seems an obsession with them, and I believe their hair would stand horrent on end if they were hitched to superlatives. The key in which they set their performances sings distinctly of culture and a knowledge of the fit. I found them rehearsing Captain Letterblair, which is so much better than A Bachelor's Romance that I wonder they did not open in it. If we accepted the former, it was the manner and not the matter of it, and we do not long to have it back. Captain Letterblair is tremendously sincere, the saving salt of all good things, with more than one situation common (usual) as mud and intentionally so — hence its beautiful humaness. It puts the right artistic tag upon the company, reveals the honest, capable stage management of Robert Morris and suggests orchestra $2.00, gallery 50 cts. The company is strong in women. They could play about any character in female life, decent and otherwise, without being hipped or out of humor, and play them cleverly, too. Miss Edythe Chapman, the leading woman, charms first by her voice, pitched in that warm, neglected key of power and pathos, so good to the ear, so truly admired, so seldom copied. She is a valuable mood-for-themoment woman — not exactly beautiful but well gowned, and moving well. She has felt many influences, but has hewed for herself a clear-cut almost fresh path. She has two grievances — it is never her fate to be out of the bill, and all her favorite roles — Nancy, Mrs. Hillary, Trilby, Sans Gene — have been done to death. They have often been done to a cruel death, but not by her. Apropos of criticism, she made a record speech: "If we felt that all dramatic critics sat in front as seriously as we do our work, we should read all that they have to say carefully and for reflection, but alas, so many of them are so absolutely flippant." "Go and talk to Julia Dean," she advised — "she's clever and worth while." * # That sort of generosity, I find, obtains throughout the company. Besides, they like a division of the good parts and they enjoy each other's successes. A great many professionals remind me of the niggers of CafFaria— if one builds a house better than his neighbors, they pull it down. * * * Julia was a blithe intermezzo, warm and impulsive in spite of the fact that "our climate is freezing her out." She has had just two seasons on the stage, the other with Joseph Jefferson. Mr. Jefferson, she insists, engaged her simply because of her relationship to Julia Dean Hayne. I'm not obliged to believe her. Heads of two opinions shook and agreed to disagree. She thought the stage-manager had the going-over habit very bad that morning and she hoped it wouldn't happen soon again. Her Sylvia gives the lie to her Jefferson story and makes my head shake the wiser. * * * Miss Lilian Andrews played with Adelaide Neilson and Lewis Morrison in the glorious old stock days when I was improving my mind (?) at a redtape boarding school and missing the best things of life. She was playing such parts as Lady Macbeth at seventeen— it sounds preposterous. It's like a page torn from ' ' Topsy-Turvy Land." She has such speaking brown eyes and would rather do the Duchess, in Windemere's Fan than anything else in her repertory. That is not a particularly modest confession — the Duchess is the whole play. She was in the cast at the opening of the Grand Opera House. * * Then there is Miss Lamkin. She was not there, but Mr. Howard assured me that she lives up to her newspaper reputation of "stock stunner." He has named his understudy for her, Lamkin II. The understudy is a monkey, the smallest yet and the most snuggly — wanting in profile, like the underbred, but giving the lie to his feature, for his manners are very good. I froze Mr. Howard by my amateur note taking trick and he started for an