The Billboard 1905-10-07: Vol 17 Iss 40 (1905-10-07)

14 The Billboard OCTOBER 7, 1905. The Billboard PUBLISHED WEEKLY AT 416 Elm Street, Cincinnati, C.,U.S.A Long Ptstance Telephone Main 2079 R. NEW YORK. Suite & Helland Bullding, 1440 Broadway. Telephone 2466—33-st CHICAGO Suite 04, Grand Opera House Building, 87 3. Clark St. Telephone Centra] 5934. LONDON, ENGLAND. 23 Oxendon Street,8.W. Telephone, Garrard. Tele grams, Breather. C. C. BakTRAM, Rep. Addyess all eommunications for the editorial or business departsanents to The Billboard Publishing Co. Subse . $4 a year; 6 months, $2; 3 months, $1 in advance. Ne extra charge te foreign subscribers. ADVERTISING RATES. Fifteer conte per line, agate measurement. Whole page, 8905; half , 2.50; quarter page, 626.25. No prembam en ouukion. The Billboard ts for sale on all trains and news-stands througheut the United States and Canada, which are supplied by the American News Co., and its branches. When not on sale please notify this office. The Billboard is sold in London at The American Exchange, Trafalgar Buildings, Northumberland Avenue, W.C. Ta Paris at Brentano's, 37 Ave. de I’ Opera. The trade supplied by the American News Co. and its branches. Remittances should be made by post office or express money order, or registered letter addressed or made payable the Billboard Pub. Co. The editor canzot undertake to return unsolicited manuscript; correspondence should keep copy. When it ts necessary to wire us the instructions and wpy for advertisements, great saving in the matter of telegraph tolla may be had by recourse to the Donaldson Cipher Code. Entered as 8econd-Class Matter at Post Office at Cine dunati, Ohio. Notice.—The Billboard will not engage to return unsolicited photographs. Editor. Saturday, October 7, 1905. NOTICE TO ADVERTISERS The first form of The Billboard, including the last eight advertising pages, goes to press Saturday morning. No advertisements for these pages can be given the desired position and no changes can be made in standing ads on any of these pages unless the copy reaches us by noon Friday. No ads for the last form will be accepted after noon Monday. If one had time, it would be great amuseegw ment to read all the dramatic reviewers. They say such quaint things occasionally. In fact, that seems to be their chief qualification—to say quaint things. And how they do love to jump on a show that fails to meet with their approval. Most of them do so fail. Indeed, the austere critic is afraid to praise any attracMion too highly, lest he seem wanting n that fine judgment which comes rom wide experience. He reminds himself always that dead Hamlets are the only good Hamlets. Joseph Jefferson said frequently that the halcyon days of the stage were always just one generation back. That is because the critics make it so. No play is ever quite as excellent as something that has been done before—if we take the critic’s word for it. Every individual comes in for his share of| commiseration except the manager. The public is imposed upon, the players are unfortunately cast, and the critic himself has to spend his valuable time sitting through a dull performance. The manager is blamed for all this—the manager who is really the sole loser. The public pays at most two dollars for its seat. The producing manager puts thousands of dollars into a failure. Surely if anyone would want it to please, he does. Why censure him? No Pity For The ca * * All our popular Novelists and Playwrights novelists are! turning their | attention to play-writing. Take Caine} and Barrie for instance. Winston |} Churchill is perhaps the latest recruit | to the list. The incentive is obvious. | Play-writing pays more than author-| ship—after success has been gained. | While the unknown playwright may} remain unknown, the author who has| achieved some degree of popularity | may readily get a reading when he produces a play manuscript. Pub| lishers are far more easily induced | to take a chance with a first book | than are managers with a first play, providing, of course, in the latter case, the author has not already won popularity in the literary field. } such The ar individual. have a ready outlet through dramatic production, or it may not, according to the opinion of the one primarily interested. If he is of the former inclination, and has demonstrated through published volumes that his purpose is true, he may turn to the stage for a hearing. But others to the contrary notwithstanding, we do not believe he ever actually loses the sense of art in mercenary seeking. We all want’ the good things of life, and if they may be had and art gratified at the same time, why not seek the quicker way? The reading public is also the theatregoing public, which goes to demonstrate that the same audience may be had for the published or the played production. * * Our attention has Mis-use of Tickets been called repeatedly to the misappropriation of railroad tickets ad vanced for the transportation of those engaged by wire or correspondence. The practice is one of the most despicable with which managers have to deal. It also gives the post-office officials much trouble, for it constitutes a usage of the mails for false purposes, and is punishable by imprisonment. On account of tickets not being used for the purpose they are intended, many managers have adopted the rule | probably not to advance them under any circumstances; but this, also, has its inconveniences, as actors and performers are often loath to incur any personal expense until they are satisfied that the engagement has been entered into with good faith on the part of the managers. Therefore there seems tobe ample space for argument on both sides of the question. Not all performers nor all managers are honest and fair. The fact is regrettable, but it stands. Still there ought to be some means of removing the chance of loss to either party. Why not get together on the issue and adopt a method by which, through an arrangement with the railroad companies, transportation may be guaranteed to the right parties, thus removing the present chance of fraud? * * ce In a recent interview with a representative of the daily press, Daniel Frohman discussed, unreservedly, the prevailing theatrical conditions in New York. He is quoted as follows: The number of failures that have inaugurated this season, while doubtless discouraging to producers, who might be inclined to find fault with the public, still prove that the taste of the public can be safely depended upon. The fault lay not with the audiences, but with the offerings. I have said frequently, when asked, that the tastes of our theatregoing community are of a most cosmopolitan character; that they are ready to patronize largely any form of entertainment which is good of its kind, which does not bore—the only crime that an author or manager can perpetrate. But the difficulty which managers have to cope with is the lack of suitable dramatic material, The trouble with most manuscripts is that, while many reveal a knowledge of stage writing and construction, there is an absence of any special striking or unique quality in the story to make it profitable. Plays may be more than merely well constructed and well written; they must have ideas, individuality, character. The question is, Where are they to come from? How are many theatres, those now existing and still coming, to be supplied with adequate material? They are questions that fill the daily life of managers, because their solution is to a great extent experimental. ‘There are no arbitrary fashions in plays beyond the fashlon of appealing to general human interest and human emotion. What is required here is a revelation of national life and characteristics, based upon a proper degree of romance. Clothes change, material conditions alter, nature never alters. To improve conditions the American manager and dramatist must appeal to the American audience. The American audience is a critical audience, and the Américan temperament leans to the realization of familiar things and familiar characters. Recent experiments have shown that foreign plays, built for and suited to the temperament of a different people, are merely transplanted to masquerade before an audience. which, thongh cosmopolitan its taste, demands works that savor mere of its own soil, unless the quality of general human interest transcends its exotie character. Unfortunately, plays of famillar human interest are not plentiful. If works were more numerous the problem of the successful play wonld be solved, but it may be accepted as a fact that plays most promising of success are those that depict human interest, elements of the life around ns, ‘heart’? plays, picturesquely told and adequately and convincingly acted. So far as the manager is concerned, he must continne to fall or succeed through his own choice, both for plays and players. No ‘“‘national theatre’’ will ever solve the problem, It Iles with the taste of the manager and his instinct in selecting the right plays, and his appeal to the intelligent taste of a discriminating public. The conditions that confront us to-day are not new conditions. They have existed since the davs of Shakespeare, and will continne to exist so long as the theatre continues to form the chief factor in the amusement of the people. Daniel Frohman Discusses Conditions His pent-up purpose may | | ; | | | those | ;gave way to Quincy Adams Sawyer last As Daniel Frohman is generally con| sidered one of the most artistic of the important producing managers, his opinions always carry considerable in tistle point ef view may vary wth the | terest and influence. MR, PIPP Well Liked in Cincinnati—Good Bill at The Columbia—A Week of General Satisfaction. Cincinnatians like Mr. Pipp. They like Digby Bell, too, and there was much interest as to what he would be like in the Gibson-Thomas character. The results justified the anticipa tion. Digby Bell never did as good work in musical comedy as he does in the cartoon play. It was a personal triumph, then. The play pleased, too. There are many clever lines in it. It would be hard to conceive of anything more intellectually funny than Mr. Pipp’s soliloquy after the butler at Carony Castle has displayed some tacit sympathy for him. “It’s funny,”’ says Mr. Pipp. **Mrs. Pipp and I never quarrel in the dining-room, and I don’t think I ever look scared—in the dining-room.’’ That is the spirit of the whole play, and Bell has caught the conception of the author admirably. What is funnier—and more pa thetic to disinterested on-lookers—than the conditions of the hen-pecked husband. The plot deals with the machinations of a suddenly enriched matron to marry her daugh ters into high society. . Mrs. Pipp (Helen Tracy) is a second Mrs. Malaprop. Her mutilation of the French language is Inudicrous, though not always amusing. Like the char lacter itself it is greatly exaggerated. The clev erness of the lines suffers somewhat in this respect also. For instance, when Mr. Pipp tells of his courtship with the present Mrs. Pipp in her father’s little shanty on the banks of the Ohio river, he says that he can still remember that her back-hair always smelt of pine-tar. That doesn’t come well from a devoted spouse who suffers his wife to order out the scheme of his daily life. After Mr. Thomas had written two acts he concluded that there wasn’t enough action to it, so he carted in some melodrama that might well form the plot of a Theodore Kremer play. It seems strangely out of place in a piece where the character delineation bas predominated through the two earlier acts. On the whole, the attraction is most pleasing. the subtlety of the humor—the humor which Digby Bell brings out so artistically. We can not imagine what Mr. Pipp would be like without the present star. W. St. Clair in the character of Count Charmarot is convincing, and looks his part to perfection. Janet Beecher and Adele Luehrman as the daughters are ideal types of the Gibson Girl— so the advance notices tell us. Well, maybe our taste is bad. Robert Willing is a better type of Gibson man, according to our judgment. He ‘‘acts’’ well, too. Fred, Courtenay as Herbert Fitzgerald is conventional and stagey. Digby Bell was called upon for a speech the night we were there, and, after some importunities, he responded. It was a neat little speech, one of the best we have heard In fact. But, oh, that ungramaticism. It jarred. In relation to the conditions of the man who is ruled by his wife, Mr. Bell said that ‘‘coming from we men” its weight, or something of that sort. was a murmur all about us. People are to notice such mistakes. That speech editing if it is kept in stock. It was a good bill at the Columbia last McMahon’s Minstrel Maids were the liners. The act is superbly set, and the music and dancing are very fetching. In fact the act had largely to do with filling the house at every performance throughout the week. Miss Edythe Chappelle is the interlocutor, while Miriam Carson and Ridie Barrette are comediennes of the first class in black face. Troba, the Great, in heavy weight juggling and feats of strength has an act that, while There week. .it follows along the lines of several others of its kind, has, at the same time, enough originality to carry it to the top anywhere If Troba would cut out the asinine comedy of his assistant, he would add materially to the quality of his performance. Ethel Robinson has several new songs which she renders in a pleasing voice and manner. Her Sweet Kittie Callahan will be one of the popular hits of the season. The Four Sullys in An Interrupted Toneymoon, a one-act sketch, make good principally through the introdnetion of the two boys, John F., jr., and Billy. The children are very clever, and all the good work of the sketch has been relegated to them. Billy’s imitation of George Cohan, coming so soon after the Yankee Doodle Comedian’s Cincinnati ment, made a hit. too. Joe Flynn, eccentric monologue came on with several new comic monologue It had merit of its own, comedian, songs, and a that kept them laughing from the The Musical Avolos, xylophone pleased the lovers of good music. but human | Start. experts, Pat Rooney and Marion Bent in Make Your| self at Home, a sketch that brings in singing and dancing. were a real feature. Zazell Vernon & Co. appeared in a comedy acrobatic sketch entitled The Elopement. The Walnut’s four weeks of musical comedy week long as the much and business did not suffer. As characters are in the hands of talented players, | Quincy Adams Sawyer will remain one of the One forgets the last act in remembering | the argument lost some of | quick | needs | head| engage| baa | Obadiah Stout, a professor ef mesic, tax collector, a candidate for postmaster, ‘an al| mighty selfish critter,’’ and more especially ip love with Lindy Putnam. We have seen such leharactér as Obadiah and welcomed the im Hiram Maxwell, played by Floyd | personation. R. Briggs, was another well drawn character, lat least in the last act, though the character might be improved upon In the first ecenes of the play. We shared sorrow with Lindy Putnam, the character in which Ada Wadsworth appeared. Miss Wadsworth did all that was expected of her. Juliet Martin, as Huldy Mason, was good. She scored a hit in her little scene with Zekiel Pettingill, and left the impression that she is capable of a more am bitious role. Zekiel was in the hands of Kar) L. Way, and the several little scenes in which he appeared with his sister, Alice, were choice bits of pathos We greatly sympathized with Zeke, and admired his devotion to his strickes sister. Burton Adams gave ai splendid impersonation of a good old soul in Deacon Mason, and G. H. Thurston did not overdo the role of Rob Wood, bass singer and town bully. Frances Williams put much life into Mandy | Skinner and was always lively. Mandy was all right. In the role of the desplicable Mrs. Putnam—‘‘just put on airth to worry other people’’—Sabra De Shon was convincing in spite of a faulty make-up. We expected Mrs. Putnam to look “‘terrible,’’ but Mise De Shon’s impersonation looked more like she had just finished cleaning a very filthy stopepipe. We wager that Mrs. Putnam never cleaned a stove pipe in her life, especially after she ‘‘took in’’ Samanthy. We must attribute her appearance to an overdose of grease paint. How ever, In actions, this character was well drawn. Kathryn Vila, as Mrs. Hawkins, boarding{house keeper and tit-bit retailer, showed us a character without which a village could not exist. E. A. Turner was better as the chum of Mr. Sawyer than as the lover of Lindy. |C. 8. Sellenberger was natural as the vat. | office chap with nothing to do outside of the | first act. It is a very evenly balanced cast, and justice is done to the parts which the jauthor evidently had in mind. Business at the Walnut was good all week. Last week the Forepangh Stock Co. at Rob inson’s presented the successful society drama, The Charity Ball. Every character was suitably adapted by the different members of the cast. This is a play which requires no ex| cessive costumes, the ordinary evening dress | being worn throughout the performance. Ann | Crnger, as a New ‘York Girl. was ably taken eare of by Miss Lavinia Shannon, and Harry | Burkhardt as John Van Burn, rector at St. | Mildred’s, presented this peenliar character in | a most agreeable manner. The role of Judge Knox taken by Albert Sackett was excep tionally good, and Louise Kent, as Mrs. Ca|}milla DePeyster also scored favorably. Miss Laura Plerpont and Walter B. Gilbert deserve | special mention in their langhable love-making. | Others who deserve mention are Henrietta | Vaders, Wilson Hummel, Mise Jessie LeRoy, | and Frederick Forrester. The above attraction played to capacity all last week. The King of The Opium Ring made its |} annual appearance in this city at Henck’s last | week, and proved a box-office winner. The company, which boasts of some real Chinese | actors, was up to the average and pleased the patrons of this house. A clever acrobatic specilalty by three Mongolians, made a_ hit. At the Lyceum last week A Wife's Secret held the boards, and proved to be a performance much better than the average. The company consisted of some clever people including a child actress who won the hearts of the audiences. Business up to the standard. The Merry Maidens, one of the hest shows on the wheel, returned to People’s last week, ;and was witnessed by heavy honses through }out Its engagement. Chevalier De Loris crej ated much talk with his wonderfnl markmanship, and proved an excellent drawing card. Last week the offering at the Standard was Rice & Barton's Rose Hill Co., and this aggregation came up to the expectations of its | andiences Comedians, chorus girls, costumes jand scenery were all first-class, and the at | tendance was big throughout the week. | CHANGE OF FAIR DATE | The San Antonio (Tex.) Fatr has been post;poned from Oct. 21-Nov. 9, to Nev. 18-29. J. M. Vance is the secretary. NO CHANGE IN DATES | Eugene Anderson, secretary of the Georgia Farmers’ Fair, at Macon, writes that there ts no change of dates for the events at Macon. Augusta, Charleston and Tampa. There is ne fever in this portion of the south. NEW HIPPODROME | Col. P. J, Mundy, the Noted Carnival Manager, Will Operate Big Amusement Resort In Kansas City. Kansas City is to have a new amasgement resort. It is to be known as the Hippodrome few village comedies worth while. Quincy Col. P. J. Mundy, the well-knowa and sueAdams Sawyer is an interesting plece of work | cessful carnival man, last Wednesday, Sept. 27, well calculated to regale a cosmopolitan andi| effected arrangements with the Metroplitanm ence. It is the story of Q. A. Sawyer who! Street Railway Company of Kansas City, very suddenly drops into Mason’s Corners, | whereby he secures control of their large power Mass., a8 quickly arousing the curiosity and house at the corner of Eighth and Woodlawn, envy of the gossips as well as winning the | which is now being converted into a big amuse affections of the feminine portion of the vil| ment building The street railway company lage. James Thatcher in the leading role was will be financially interested with Mr. Mundy convincing and pleasing. Mr. Thatcher appears in the exploitation. to have been the one for whom the role was The location for the Kansas City Hippodrome written, so evenly does it fit him. Elizabeth Is all that could be desired. With excellent G. Meredith, in the role of Alice Pettingill, is | transportation facilities the resort will be only appealing and nothing more. As the beloved, | seven minutes from the center of the city. beautiful and blind girl, her’s was an excel-| The building is ample (138x158) for big show lent portrayal. We would Ike to see Miss | purposes, and no expense will be spared to Meredith in a “‘straight’’ role. We do not | make it one of the most attractive places in like to see her apparently waste her intense | Missouri's most progressive city. beanty upon the role of Alice. Jertrnde Au The Mundy Shows will close the road seasem garde, as Samanthy Green, ‘‘an aggravatin’ Nov. 1. All of the show paraphernalia will be brat,’’ was all that the role implies. Sa| transported to Kansas City. Col, Munday's manthy creates a lot of humor and her ap. animal show i!s readily recognized as one © pearance is always welcomed. . Alice Baldwin the best In the world, The soological departas Mrs. Crowley and BE. H. Stephens as Abner | ment will be accentuated for the Kansas City Stiles were especially good in their comedy | engagement. High-class vaudeville will be # roles. They gave true delineations of well | feature at the Hippodrome, and Col, Mundy known types, and were rather imitative than | Will introduce amusement innovations entirely creative, Wm. Kitts was good in the role of | new to Kansas City people.