San Francisco dramatic review (1899)

October 3, 1908. THE SAN FRANCISCO DRAMATIC REVIEW 5 Los Angeles is the Scene of Much Theatrical Changing Los Angeles, Oct. 1. — The Gayety Company has been notified that their season will terminate Saturday night. October 10, the two weeks' notice having been posted on the bulletin board Sunday night last. While business has been passable, yet it has not lived up to expectations, and the management believes that other plans will produce greater revenue, hence . Following the closing of the house, the bookings of the uncompleted Majestic Theatre will be played at the Grand, it is stated, until such time as Manager Morosco's new theatre is completed, sometime late in November or December. When that home for the Cort shows is completed, rumor has it that Dick Ferris, who is here, will install a popular-priced melodramatic stock company after the pattern of the old Ulrich company. However, both Dick and Clarence Drown denv this latter report, despite the insistence of its circulation. Meanwhile Ferris is planning a transcontinental balloon journey, and, whether it goes through or not, he sure is getting a lot of publicity at the hands of the various sporting and dramatic editors. The Empire Theatre management announces a change of policy, and will, after next week, play only vaudeville, cutting out the stock company whose comedies have been a feature of the program since the house opened. Additional specialties will be added, and the same type of show as that now given in the regular Sullivan-Considine houses will be given. Al Franks, who has been producer since the opening of the house, will, it is said, go to San Francisco. The plans of the other members of the stock company have not matured as yet. Ray Beveridge. engaged by the John H. Blackwood company when the personnel of the Stone company was being made up in New York, failed to please as highly as was expected, and hence has been allowed to resign. She returned to New York this week. Also Darrell Standing and Edwin lAugust have given in their notices, ! Standing having already left the cast, and August leaving after next week. Their successors have not been announced. Manager Morosco is still guessing about his leading woman. If she can be secured, however, it is to be Virginia Keating. The Searchlight, Richard Barry's play, is to be produced by the Stone company, probably during election week. Manager John H. Blackwood predicts a great success for the piece, whose plot is .'volved largely from incidents in the San Francisco graft prosecution. The )rincipal character is a young reporter )f the detective type, who accom)lishes much, and is said to have >6en drawn from a prototype in eal life. The piece was written Jor .xw'is S. Stone, because of his success n a similar part in The Undertow. Wl speaking of newspaper reporter )lays. Eugene Walter is said to be vriting one for Stone, also modeled •n the reporter in The Undertow. He howed the scenario to Stone when he latter was in New York recently. AUDITORIUM — Jules Eckert ioodman's latest play, The Test, is 'roving itself a great success, and is ti many ways one of the best plays I ever saw. Its lines are witty, pointed and epigrammic in many spots, while the careful character drawing and the situations evolved from a story, in many ways commonplace, stamp the playwright a real artist. It is a play which must be seen to be appreciated, but the plot of it is, briefly, as follows: Ten years before the opening of the play, Dick Tretman has stolen money that he might give the women he loved more than his meager salary as a clerk would buy. When he is caught, the girl, ignorant till then of what he had done, bargains with his employer — herself for her lover's freedom. The libertine, who has plotted Tretman's downfall just for this purpose, accede^ to the bargain, lint after her payment of the price allows the lover to be sent to the penitentiary for ten years. When the play opens the girl, Emma Eltynge, has been redeemed in a measure from her first mistake by Arthur Thone, a young settlement worker and writer on sociological topics. They are in love, Thone and the girl, but with a fine sense of honor and the fitness of things learned, she says, from him, she refuses his offer of marriage. Comes then Tretman, with all the stored-up bitterness of those ten years in a prison-hell, strong with a purpose of winning back the place he held in the world before his fall. They meet, he in ignorance of her sacrifices for him. The battle of the mutual hates soften before the power of the truth, but the girl no longer loves him. Her betrayer is engaged to marry the sister of Thone. To prevent this marriage, she tells Miss Thone the whole awful truth of her own downfall before her brother and the betrayer himself. Brought face to face with the real character of the beast she was about to marry, the sister withdraws, and, after a wonderfully strong scene, during which Tretman learns the complete truth of his early sweetheart's sacrifice for him, Thone and the girl are united, and Tretman goes out into the world alone to win back that esteem he has lost, the betrayer being driven from the country through fear of the wronged man's vengeance. Florence Oakley plays the girl, who is really the central figure of the play, capitally. Running the gamut of all the emotions, it is a severe test of the young woman's abilities, through which she comes triumphantly. Lewis S. Stone plays the released convict, and makes of him so strong a study that Goodman tried to borrow him for the New York presentation of the play, in which Blanche W alsh is to star, the opening taking place within two months. George Farren is the young settlement worker; Leslie Preston, his sister; Howard Scott, the villain; Beatrice Xoyes. Thone's stenographer ; James Appelbee, an old German landlord, and Harry Spear, a janitor. All are good in their parts. Opening night the piece was given an ovation, and is the talk of the town. Next, The Prisoner of Zenda. BFLASCO— The Love Route has proven an extremely popular revival, and has served to show A. II. Van Buren and Lovell Alice Taylor, the Belasco company's new leading people, in a very favorable light. Van Buren, as the athletic, straightforward young railroad engineer, has a part to his liking and plays it well, glidingover the melodramatics with painstaking care and a finish worthy of emulation by some other members of the company. Miss Taylor wears khaki, leggings and a revolver belt as one to the manor born, and her "bossing" of her Texas property is spirited and well done. The ensemble work and the stage management are the same artistic displays that made the play a success at the Belasco a few months since. Among the supporting company there are several worthy of special mention. Dorothy Bernard is good as the friend of the heroine. Charles Ruggles was the secretary, and did as good a bit of character acting as has been seen here in a long time. Ben Graham made a hit as a cowboy, and the former box-office man, Phillip White, earned his spurs as actor in the role of the Mexican. BURBANK— The Burbankers are seemingly more at home in The County Chairman than in anything presented at the Morosco stock house in many months. Hence the production is a marked success, and has been meeting with hearty support. Fay Bainter, always chic and refreshing in her comedy parts, is more effective as little Chick Flzey, the orphan, in this clever Ade comedy, than in anything else she has done for us. So clever is the young woman that she quite takes the honors from Desmond, whose "poor but honest politician" is the best thing he's done in weeks. The play is too well known to require even brief mention. Suffice it to say that Morosco's players give it a fully adequate production. Edwin Vivian, a brother of Richard Vivian of the Belasco company, has the part of the country editor, and does well with it. Louise Royce has one of the best parts which has fallen to her in many weeks, and displayed an emotional power quite unsuspected by those of her listeners who had seen her only in the comedy character work which is so frequently her role. Henry Stockbridge is customarily effective as Jupiter Pattaway of the fife and drum corps. Elsie Esmond, as a country milliner, was one of the hits of the. performance, both in acting and costuming. Blanche Hall, as the judge's daughter, played the part of the country school teacher in quite good taste, while Harry Mestayer, as the "candidate," made rather unimpassioned love to her. A. Byron Beasley gives one of his effective character heavies. MASON OPFRA HOUSE — Dustin Farnum is a clever star in his clever play of this year, The Squaw Man, despite his modest apologies for appearing here in a play which served to introduce another star last season, lie makes of the title role, a character very real, very human and very appealing, adding new laurels to his already generous crown of successes. He holds his audience by no threadworn tricks of theatricalisms, but by sheer cleverness of acting, of which the acme is naturalness in the circumstances. George W. Deyo was admirable in the role of Big Bill, the foreman, and the other cowpunchers were acceptable. Mitchell Lewis looked a sufficiently noble red man and spoke real Ute, according to a programme note. If he had not done so it is doubtful whether or not the audience would have been the wiser. Mary B. Conwell played the part of Diana and was altogether charming in the lighter moments, notably in the scene where she auctions Capt. Jim off to the richest woman. Her graceful figure was well costumed and she seemed quite attractive enough to be worth the great love inspired in Jim Wynnegate's heart. Katherine Fisher managed to make a striking figure in the almost pantomimic part of Nat-u-Ritch. The other women were acceptable in the small roles assigned them. the piece is well staged. ORPHEUM— There is infinite variety in the menu dished up at Drown's vaudeville emporium this week. Edna Phillips and company present Lost: A Kiss in Central Park, a clever little comedy, well staged and well played. A novelty is introduced by the Grassys in a mirror illusion, which, though it much looks like one, isn't at all. but is merely clever mimicry on the part of the "reflection," which eventually leaves the frame and walks about the stage with the poser. A short dance, introducing the sketch, and some acrobatic work fill out the ten minutes. A diverse collection of songs, ranging from coon shouts to Spanish numbers, are presented by Carter and P» hi ford, Cubans. A Padded Cell, by the Wilson Brothers, is amusing. McPhee and Hill, "the clown and the hired man," do some good acrobatic stunts. The De Haven Sextette; The Four Baltus," and Willie and Eugene Howard complete the bill. GRAND— The Girl from over Yonder at the Grand is in many ways the best offering the Gayety Company has made since its season opened. Director R. F. Kirkpatrick has provided some really excellent incidental music for the play. Mr. Carr sings I Want What I Want When I Want It. from The Little Milliner, and When a < rirl Leads the Band; "Elise Schuyler, 1 Got to Get Myself a Man and There's Always Something Wrong; Charles Giblyn, When Tommy Atkins Marries Dolly Gray; Harry Warded, By the Side of the Zuyder Zee, and parodies, and Helen Goff, You're in Love, and a duet with Mr. Carr, You'll lie Sorry. For the finale, Miss Blondell, in a drum major's regalia, appears in the orchestra pit to lead the W hen a Girl Leads the Band, and, as a surprise party, the entire chorus, outfitted as a drum corps, marches down the aisles from the back of the house and over an improvised bridge to the stage. LOS ANGELES— Uncommonly good is the bill at the Los Angeles — not only in spots but all the way through. It is difficult to pick the head-line act. Probably Fred and Eva Mozart, the "Original Snow Shoe Dancers," come as near capturing the prize as any. Besides doing some more or less intricate dancing while encumbered with wooden imitations of real snow shoes, the man does some singing of merit, and the young woman presents a rope-skipping dance. J. C. Nugent and company in The Rounders, a short comedy sketch, run them a close second for the place of favorite. Louise Aubcr, a young woman of winning personality, sings SweetContinued on P»ge 12