San Francisco dramatic review (1899)

12 THE SAN FRANCISCO DRAMATIC REVIEW July 9, 1910 THIS ONE WILL GET THE MONEY • • • • THE • • • • Charles H. Edler Co. PLAYING A SPECIAL SUMMER SEASON STOCK PRODUCTION AT SANTA CRUZ Ibsen Heroines Just "Cows With Crumpled Horns" Margaret Anglin's production of the Greek classic, Antigone, at Berkeley during her recent engagement here has brought out much interesting matter of observation and information. Frances Joliffe, in the Bulletin, particularly, turned out a splendid interview with George Riddle, who assisted Miss Anglin in the staging of the play. "In comparison with the women of the ancient Greek dramas, the heroines of Ibsen and Pincro are just cows with crumpled horns who kick over the milk pail," said Mr. Riddle. Mr. Riddle should know. It was he who gave in a revealing performance of Edipus Rex at Harvard in the '80s the stimulus to a renascence of the Greek drama in America. He set the fashion for colleges to give ( ireek plays and to build Greek theatres. "Why." persisted Mr. Riddle in his wonder, "the heroines of the Greek tragedies were more advanced than our most rabid suffragettes. They thought nothing of breaking the laws of the state. And such women seem the more strange when you think that the Athenian women were confined to the gynseceum or women's quarters in the back of the house. Miss Anglin is a superb Antigone." Mr. Riddle repeated his adjective, "Superb ; and now 1 want to see her do Clytemnestra. What a figure she would make in this desperate, harassed woman, standing with bloody dagger over the bodies of Agamemnon and Cassandra ! " Mr. Riddle is rich in reminiscences and references. "My sister always begs me not to drag in the name of Charlotte Cushman, but I can't help it. Cushman. Forrest, McCuIlough, Booth — these were the great influences of my youth. And the glorious Ristori. Do'you remember Ristori? Ah, that was a wonderful actress. When she died three i>r four years ago in Italy every king and emperor sent a wreath to her funeral, including our own Emperor Teddy." There it was again, the most histrionic figure of them all, dominating the imagination and pushing even strenuous Greek heroines aside. I became a point of interrogation at once. "Theodore Roosevelt took lessons from me just before his marriage to Alice Lee. And a charming girl she was. When Roosevelt was in college we did not recognize any of these propensities in him. He was always different from the others, but we did not realize how different. What 1 remember most distinctly about Roosevelt while at college were his charming manners. Do you think that if Roosevelt were not the aristocrat born and bred that he could mingle so weil with all kinds of people? I shall never forget the beautiful bow he would make as he entered my recitation room and left it. It's the same bow he gives today to the engineer on the locomotive." We got out of the shadow of the dominating personality long enough to talk a little more of the Greek drama. Mr. Riddle was having his difficulties. He sighed. "All the world is stagestruck. It's gone stage mad, and the amateur surpasses everything for brazen, brash effrontery. You know the hardest people to manage are the people who don't need the money. "Tell me, did you wear the Athenian costume in your production? Yes, that would be more correct, but Professor Anderson chose the Homeric as the more picturesque and justified as belonging to the period of the play." Mr. Riddle said he had discarded the idea of having the choral dances. "We don't know anything about their dances anyhow, and when they attempted them in the London production of Antigone in 1846, Punch came out with all sorts of cartoons ridiculing them. They were even too much for Mendelssohn, who had come to London to lead his music for the production and who was endowed witli a keen sense of the ludicrous. W e know so little about the details of the Greek performances that the safest way is to use common sense. The chorus must have been on the level with or a very little below the actors, for the intimate conversations held between the actors and the chorus. The proscenium is too high in the Greek Theatre, so we shall place the chorus on the stage. I don't know that I altogether approve of colleges and universities going in so strongly for dramatics, and if they continue the only solution will be a dramatic school connected with the college. They must have had them in the universities in Shakespeare's time. Hamlet refers to them." Askin Has Hopes Harry Askin in his litigation anent the La Salle Theatre in Chicago, won another point last week, and has now advanced the case to the point where he is preparing to take possession of the playhouse for the purpose of producing there on August 15th a new and as yet unnamed musical comedy now being written for him by Addison Burkhardt, Collin Davis and Joseph E. Howard. Mr. Askin has made a long-term contract with Howard whereby that composer will write exclusively for him. Uurkhardt was the author of Chow Chow, the first of the La Salle Theatre shows. Mr. Askin has organized and is president and general manager of, the La Salle Opera House Company, and it is the intention at this time to change the name of the playhouse from La Salle Theatre to La Salle Opera House. Mr. Askin will retain the managership at the Grand Opera House. The litigation for possession of the the Ferris Hartman And His Superb Singing Company. Now at Princess Theatre Commencing July 10, 1910 MacDonough Theatre, Oakland Permanent Home GRAND OPERA HOUSE, LOS ANGELES C. V. KAVANAGH, Manager LEW SPALDING, Business Manage^ Your Booking Helped by Fine Fotos RIGHT PRICES 4x6 Fotos, Ten Positions $15.00 per 100 6V2 x 10V2 Fotos, Three Positions $5.00 per dozen C. A. MYERS, Photographer 908 Market Street — 21 Eddy Street atrc has been in progress for more than a year. The following history of the case is furnished by Attorney ' P. L. McArdle, representing Mr. Askin: "In May, 1909, Mort H. Singer and Merman Eehr obtained art injunction against Anna Sinton ' Taft. Harry Askin, Charles \Y. Murphy and Charles Schmalstig restraining them from taking forcible possession of the La Salle Theatre, claiming that they had an option for a five years' lease from that date. The case was referred by Judge Barnes to Master in Chancery Abbey, who heard the testimony, amounting to about 1.500 pages, and recorded his findings in favor of Mrs. Taft and Askin, Murphy and Schmalstig. Objections were ma le to these findings and a hearing was had before Judge Dupuy of the Superior Court, who confirmed the report of the master in chancery and dissolved the injunction against the defendants. The decree was then modified, keeping the injunction in force to April t. 1910, to enable the complainants to bring the case on appeal to the Appellate Court. A'! of the findings of Judge Dupuy were in favor of the defendants. By a motion made in the Appellate Court in the absence of the defendants. Messrs. Singer and Fehr obtained an extension of the injunction, and the case came up for final hearing on May 23d last, when, by a unanimous decision of the Appellate Court, the findings of the master i i chancery and Judge Dupuy were in all particulars sustained and the injunction dissolved. Thereupon Messrs. Singer and Fehr made a motion in the Appellate Court requesting that court to certify to the Supreme Court that the case was one of importance which should be passed upon by the Supreme Court. This motion was denied. They then made a motion asking the Appellate Court to revive the injunction pending appeal to the Supreme Court, which was also denied. All the findings of the master in chancery were confirmed by the decree of the Superior Court, and these again were confirmed by the judgment of the Appellate Court." Personal Mention Reva Raymond, Ralph Bell and Ray Parker are rehearsing for vaudeville. Captain Robert Marshall, the dramatist, is dead in London. He was born at Edinburgh, Scotland. June 21. 1863. Actors, Attention! Register with the WESTERN DRAMATIC AGENCY 1112 Market Street. Room 104 GOOD PEOPLE WANTED NOW Chorus Girls also Wanted WALTER MONTAGUE, Manager Andrews Opera Chairs General Seating School — Church — Rank Office and Steel Rod Furniture Purchase direct from manufacturer THE A. H. ANDREWS CO. Pacific BUg.. San franclsco Chlcaoo. New York. Tacoma City Transfer GUS TEMPS OFFICE, 1685 ELLIS STREET Near the Princess Theatre Phones: W6729 — F2729 Theatrical Baggage a Specialty Ft a r* r» scenic L A U U CO., Inc. The Largest Exclusive Scene Painting Studios in the United States, employing more artists continuously than all the other studios west of Chicago COMBINED. Special attention given scenery for vaudeville acts, theatres, lodge halls and exhibitions. 16th St. & P. E. Tracks, L< IS A.W.KLKS. A Reliable Agency for Managers and Players Sketches, Dramas and Plavs Written to < >rder Northwestern 1 heatrical Booking Agency The Agency of the "SQUARE DEAL" W. M. RASMUS E. G. HARPER Entire Third Floor. Mulkey Block, 2nd and Morrison Streets Phone. Main 9212. Portland. Oregon WM. H. LELAND S. RICE^ BAR 129 OFARRELL ST., S. F. Martin Caupkntkr. formerly chief usher at the Central Theatre, was married June 25 to Winnie Kay. at one time a memher of the Central stock. Charles Edler and his stock company close in Santa Cruz this week and open in Eureka on the 18th, where they will play an eight weeks' engagement. Percy Mackaye. the brilliant satirist, who wrote Henrietta Crosuran's newest play, Anti-Matrimony, is a young man, not yet 40 years old. He has much of the manner of George Bernard Shaw, without being imitative. He lacks Shaw's brutality or bluntness of expression, however, but in its place has a convincing straightforward way sJ. driving home a point.