The Billboard 1911-10-07: Vol 23 Iss 40 (1911-10-07)

OCTOSER 7, 1911. The Bi llboard 13 FOREIGN AMUSEMENT NEWS | LONDON LETTER he Hope, Presented by Strong Company at Drury Lane, Contains Sensational Scenes—Japanese Play Scores at the Shaftesbury——-News from the English Metropolis at the beginning of every theatrical season ' t frequent complaint among mndon s a in the vernacular, sepaper men that they get, ' ; with the theatre and all its works or a reel of about sixteen first nights, one the other. and especially when one has le tha s fresh or epoch making, 1 wee the feeling is inevitable But I have s four that the best cure for this par + trouble is the first performance of the drama at Drury Lane It is true knows pretty wel: what to expect be gor pe knows the limit of even Drury ss le effects; one knows that the great ts f the past year will be worked in w. and one is absolutely sure that the oa itself will be of the crudest order. And he fascination remains. Dragged from one’s er in order to see the curtain go up at t s almost unearthly in its earli slly fixed there until well into of midnight Six solid hours “ is the usual program and one has go through it And yet to the Londoner It rer palis Tals season production, The Hepe, by Cecil gh and Henry Hamilton, is no exception the rule Marvelousiy unreal in concep allies the last word in stage effects. acts there are sixteen grand scenes, m sensational in the highest degree These include The Park at Carysford Chase exquisitely beautiful landscape; The Interior the Dewan Kas, Delhi, exhibiting the fam throne room, with its jewel-encrusted ivory . ams, at which surpassingly brilllant dinner given by the viceroy, wherein the costumes the guests impart a picturesqueness Indica f the forthcoming Durbar; An Earthquake have a weakness for accomplished principal, “having a bit comedienne, Fanny Brough, is the and the tipster is Charles Rock, pretty well the best all-round comedian on the English stage They laughs they get out of and the hits they make in these scenes is some thing astonishing The company is about as strong as could be got together over here. Cyril Keightley, as the hero, is in his element. With every chance of putting up a great acting stunt, he makes good all the time. Lyston Lyle is the viilain and the hissing he received from the ‘‘gods’’ n the gallery is sufficient tribute. The great est hit, however, is made by Frederick Ross as the money-lender. Throughout, his scenes are the strongest and best Gifted with the finest voice among ali our contemporary actors, his passionate denunciation of the villain who has seduced bis daughter and his vow of ven geance are among the best things I have seen for a long time The women. also. are Evelyn D'Alroy, one of the ‘“‘com of the stage, is just great as the heroine, Madge Fabian. as the wronged woman, holds the sympathies of the audience throughout, The play is not a story down and criticize as a work of art. were it would not be fit for Drury Lane. But it is crammed thoroughly with thrilling inci dents and exciting situations and it is played by a magnificent company that get every ounce out of their material. The ‘“Lane’’ will be packed from now on to Chrictmas, and once the pantomime is over, The Hope will crowd the plece again until the end of next summer. Not so very long ago the Shaftesbury was regarded as one of the ‘‘unlucky’’ theatres. Then came Robert Courtneidge and The Arcadians with a two-year run and once again the house took rank among the best. A few nights ago the new Japanese slay, The Mousme, was produced there and, 80 does the cycle of luck go, it seems as though the management have found something pretty well as good as its predecessor. Curiously enough, as in The Hope, an earthquake is the dominating scene, and an earthquake in the peaceful realms of musical comedy is a sensation indeed. The story is The on.”’ rare ing’’ that one could sit i } one of love and war, and one gets the first ink ling of home from trouble when Capt. Fujiwara returns the war to claim his little 0 Hana , San. When he started out 0 Hana San, as she tells in her first song. knew nothing of life. But, in the meantime, she has agreed, | Yamaki, | chance Massigiia, preceded by a devastating fire, . ting ecenes of realism that even the stage Drury Lane has never before equaled; and, ' y and most important, The Race for the rey. which starts from Tattenham Corber, ' seven thoroughbreds racing at full speed m the back of the stage diagovally to the : probably the finest and most realistic 4 murse scene ever presented in a theatre. t s in the case of The Whip, The Hope is . racehorse by which young Lord Norchester es to retrieve the fertunes of his family . buy back his ancestra! home, Carysford + eee. Like all other Drury Lane heroes, Car" ed is an aristocrat of aristocrats and at 1 same time on the verge of bankruptcy. It pens that beth he and his cousin, Sir Hector ot. «a baronet.—baronets are always bold 4 always bad on the Drury Lane stage—are love with an exceedingly high-born, proud and | : ~conious lady, Brenda Carlyon. Inciden. y, the wicket barenet bas also wronged the | ghter of a millionaire money-lender Olive e tburn The suspicions ef the avenging a ver fall upon the young nebleman—unjustly. ‘, urse—and he ‘sells him up,"’ including h, Hope. the horse expected to win the Derby also the ancestral home. ly ‘ter sundry adventures in all parts of the “4 rid, all the parties get together in a hotel It Italy. There a terrific earthquake occurs. re tremendous peril to himself, Norchester es the lives of both of the girls and, inci ally, compels Olive to confess the truth— in ' Grant and not he was her seducer, Promptzs ‘he millionaire transfers his work ef ven by ore to the baronet and ruins hia in the ed wletest shape. The Hope and the estates given back to the hero, the horse wins the ed Poy, and the heroine, Brenda, wins the Cal re ‘ sWeepstake and draws a trifle of $400,000 ey “onsequence Interspersed are several ex0. St comedy scenes. The best is that which as nid in a ladies" college at Oxford Univers! ne where the principal is a lady of enormous Ree Dp, coupled with a passion for what 0 Rgland ts called “backing the gees."’ She ‘tried to a gentleman who is both a racing ed fr and and acrobat. Included among her ul * are the heroine. her friend and the rk: ged danghter of the financier, all of whom en at TT v's FIRMIN GEMIER, . the theatre ont of doore or catre as it ts sometimes called. for the sake of paying Fujiwara’s gaming debts owing to the villain, Capt. Yamaki, to sell herself as a Geisha whose first duty is ‘‘to smile and obey."’ But Yamaki returns home to be acclaimed as a hero for bravery that was really Fujiwara’s. And, to claim his laurels, the latter demands a court of inquiry. But the unscrupulous, by a deal with the tea-house keeper, has got Hana into his pewer, and when the hour of the fateful inquiry arrives, Fnjiwara ts given the choice by Yamaki between sacrificing hie henor as a soldier and _ resculng his leve. Fujiwara chooses the latter and immediately, without giving Hana the to explain her apparent treachery, upher with the utmost bitterness. Hana explain and the soldier is too thickheaded to ask for an explanation, but, luckily, the earthquake comes along in time and puts everything in order by postponing the inquiry, and everything ends happilr. Harry Welchman, one of the great successes of The Arcadians, plays Fujiwara, and he gets many fine chances, of which he makes the best advantage, both Im song, dance and speech. Hana is played in the most dainty fashion by Florence Smithson, while Eric Maturin—lately distinguishing himself in heavy tragedy—puts ap a fine show as the villain Dan Roly at— whom I first knew as a heavy lead in a No. 2 traveling company—as Suki, a fortune teller, gets himself mixed up in the plot in a way that gives numberless opportunities to one of the best comedians we possess. Commandeered for the war, though posing as a veteran for quite another object, he dies a ‘beautiful death’’ In a glowing dispatch which he bimeelf concocts In a manner which is really masterly. Arthur Wimperts and Perey Greenbank are responsible for the lyrics, Lionel Monckton and Howard Talbot have written the music, and altogether the piece goes from beginning to end with a swing which is delightful and which, 1 think. will charm everyone when it gets to your side of the water Wrndham's Theatre by Frank Curzon and a new four-act comedy by The Perplexed Husband There is not much story in the play and the main interest in the character drawing which the author has given to the actors engaged The scene ts laid at the house of a young married and fairly wealthy man In the suburbs of London He is 35. hae a charming wife and children, and, when the play begins, has returned home after a month in anxious to see hfs family You ean tmagine his consternation when he discovers that In his absence his wife has become an advanced advocate of ‘equal rights for women"? and has two of the leaders of the movement, a man and a woman visit to his house At first he tries to laugh her out of her folly, but that Is of no nse She ts imbued with all the Ibsenite ideas and no effort of his is of any avail Then the husband temperizes, and aceepting the advice of a wordlywise married invites his beautiful stenographer—a girl who raves of the beautiful and has been a model—to come on a visit to the honse and study the doctrines now accepted bw his wife The strategy of bringing tn a beautiful vroung woman to rouse his wife's fealonsy does not suceved all at onee Rut in the end {tt has ite effect. Eventually the young lady leaves the house accom has fust Gerald du Maurier with Alfred Sutro called stTSsi8 sister (Continued on page 52.) | been reopened lies | on al PARIS LETTER | The Style in Plays to Change—Historical and Girl Plays to Be the Vogue—Odds and Ends of Theatrical News from the French Capital We are going to have a new style In plays, so they say. Of course there are styles in plays just as there are styles for gowns and bats furbelows and these styles change, though not quite so often. Last year plays were built about middle-aged married women all madly in love with some man or other not her husband. The year before, nice, dear girls of sweet seventeen became insanely infatuated with The preceding year, husbands of pretty enough wives had affairs with other ladies, year before that. °* up? All these plays were risque to the line, and some of them, far from being pieces to which seminary girls should take their boxes of chocolates to eat, were naughty enough to make an old stager redden up a bit. This year, I’m told (though I won't believe it until I see it with my own eyes and hear what's said with my own ears) the mode has changed. Plays will be young girl plays. They will be nice, gentle affairs, harmless from start to finish; plays to which daughter might with propriety invite mother. In duty bound, I must say that the list of plays shown me does not fully bear out the Yeport. Still, historical plays are scheduled and I have seen historical plays, even in France that were decent. Savonarola is one of this kind of plays, for instance, and this piece will be seen here this year. Le Menage de Moliere, by Maurice Donnay, is another one of the historical productions on tap. Edmond Rostand’s version of Faust was put in among the historical pieces. Why? it would be hard to say; and surely this will be ef a nature in keeping with the promised new style play. Victer Hugo's Lacrezia Borgia is to be revived and this is eminently proper, the principal theme being poisen. Next in the list comes Bel Ami. Someone has drawn a play from Guy de Maupassant’s novel ef that name. Now if there’s one playwright in the world able to draw enough material frem Bel Ami to make one short play suitable for young girls, he ought to be presented with a pewter medal. Two more comedies are announced, the one named Rue de la Paix, the other Le Masculin. The former is by Abel Hermant, the second by Paul Hervieu. Perhaps Abel Hermant has taken the pledge and has perpetrated a play for young girls. but I will be pardoned if I doubt it. By the same token Le Masculin is perhaps free from stain, but we can not forget that the same pen wrote The Labyrinth. ‘‘Plays ef love and healthy emotien’’ are promised from the workshop of Henry Battaille and these may really be food for babes and sucklings, but we'll bet a nickel that. in spite of the name, Primerose, by Robert de Flers and Geston de Cailla vet, will be spicy as grandmother’s pickle jar. and that when it is adapted for the American stage, as it will be, some few cuts will have to be made. Still, I'm open to conviction. The listed playlet by Madame Edmond Rostand, entitled Un Un Bon Petit Diable (The Little Mischief would be a fair translation of this), can certainly be relied upon, when all others fair, as being a shockless, spotiess, sinless little thing, drawn, as it is, from the milk-and -water story by Madame de Segur. Young Maurice Rostand. trying to walk in papa’s footsteps, collaborated with his mother on this piece. And so it goes. Pierre Wolf has just finished a three-act comedy, unnamed, to be produced at the Gymnase. It will be created by Huguenet, Garry and Mlle. Madeleine Lely. Saint-Georges de Bouhelier has written a play which he will call La Feerle Amoureuse, and a second entitled Les Esclaves. The Odeon may produce one of these. at least. perhaps both. | Albte Valabregue has been real busy during the summer and has brought back to Paris with him a fairy play in five acts, called Le Monde Ideal. Perhaps it were better to call this one an operetta, since there is to be considerable in the way of music. Ame Nouvelle, written in collaboration with Dario Niccodeml, is another work, this being a four-act comedy. Mme. Bernhardt has accepted this. A threeact dramatic work, called Les Grands Voleurs (a revamped oldtimer), a four-act comedy entitled La Femme Mitorenne, a one-act playlet in prose, another im verse and a few scenarios represent some of the other things he had in his pocket. Francis de Croisset. at Versailles, Is complet ing a three-act comedy for Andre Rrule. to be produced at the Athenee The combination of author, actor and theatre worked together once before In Arsene Lupin, as may be remembered Emile Moreau, writing with his son, has fin ished a play to be produced at the Odeon this year. It ts called l'Impasse. Madame Tallien which he wrote with Sardon, is also to be brought out Monsieur Pickwick—which the Frenchman will call Monsieur Peekveek—is another novelty the Athenee is to offer theatregoers. likewise a fan tasy-costume-comedy called l' Amour en Cage. of the Louis XII epoch. NPWS NOTES. | Mme. Sarah Bernhardt {fs now ifn London where she has gone for a six weeks’ engage ment at the Colisenm The Trial of Joan a@’Are, which has never been seen fn England. will be put on Sa Fille, a new play by Duqnesnel and Raride. is now in rehearsal at the Vanideville The French opera troupe from the Opera Comique, which has fust conc!uded a season tn Sonth America, Is now on the seas homeward hound Private advices say Albert Carre. the director of the Opera Comique. lost moner on the trip. business not being nearly np to l expectations, Italian and Spanish operas are | the favorites in that part of the world, it is sald. mature married men. | and the | But why keep it) last | Edmond Rostand will talk on Cyrano de Ber© gerac at the Odeon during January, his leeture to precede the performance of the play. | He was once a pupil of Maurice Feraudy. and, in such company as Sarah Bernhardt, Constant Coquelin and Le Bargy, he has learned how to act. So his discourse will be well spoken, not ee and he does this sort of thing extremely weil, Director Antoine of the Odeon has commenced relearsals of the first act of a French version of David Copperfield. At a new ‘Passion Theatre’? at Nancy the Divine Tragedy has just been played. The bishop of Saint-Die presided and the piece was quite a success, The Olympia has reopened with a newly fixed up interior. The Odeon reopens its season September 23 with l’Avare as the attraction. The piece is a revival. Andre Brule, creator of the role of Arsene Lupin, is to appear shortly at the Cigale, a music hall here. This is the first time he bas left the legitimate. Regina Badet is doing her dances at the Matigny now, in the course of the revue. The Folits Bergere has reopened te good business. The Readings, whom all Billboard readers know or know of, are on the bill. The acrobats take well. The Twelve Verona Beauties, Chevalier, Mme. Caselli and Her Dogs are other hits. The Belle of New York has taken Paris by the ears again. The Moulin Rouge hae kept the pot boiling most of the summer with this revival. The circus season has commenced. The Nouveau Cirque started the game with a good bill. Andre Antoine will produce an adaptation of VEtoile de Seville, during the coming season, with Mme. Vera Sergine in the role of Estrella. Papa, the de Flers and de Caillavet comedy at the Gymnase, did big business this summer. Lucien Guitry, creator of tke title role of Chantecler, will appear before Christmas at the Gymnase in a Bernstein play. It was at first reported that it would be Apres Moi, the piece which caused the trouble last spring at the Comedie Francaise, but this has since been denied. William Burgess, the Englishman who swam the English Channel recently. being the second man ever to perform the feat, has ‘‘posed’’ for motion pictures, soon to be seen here. The start from England, mid-channel, the landing, the method of taking nourishment In the water, etce., was all gone through with before the camera. Over 4,000 feet of film were exposed, but the completed strip will be cut down to 1,006 feet. Raymond Teal, whe has just closed a most successful season ef nine weeks at the Majestie Airdome, Fresno, Cal., opened September 21 in his new winter theatre, Teal’s Theatre, formerly the Novelty, Mr. Teal having secured a fouryear lease on the property. The policy of the house will be musical comedy and burlesque. The company epening has the fellowing roster: Raymond Teal, swner; Fritz Fields, producer; Cash Knight, principal comedian: Jack Chesbro, leads: Drow Avery, characters; Corrine Carkeek, leading woman; Grace Wolf, soubrette: Laura Wolf, prima donna; Claire Davis, ballet mistress; Mrs, Coulter, wardrobe mistress: Harry Brerstadt, musical director, with orchestra of six. Mr. Teal’s picked chorus of fourteen girls, which has always been the admiration of playgoers, will go to fill out an exceptionally strong cast. Frank Wolf, who has been with Raymond Teal for six years, will have the management of the theatre. Mr. Teal will send this comnany to Portland, Ore., December 1, bringing another show in here for the season. MLLE. BALASCHOWA, Premiere danseuse of Moscow, who takes up the leading part in the Alhambra ballet, The Dance Dream, replacing Mlle. Geltzer, who is returning to Russia, rar rs ; ; ; % _— die oe nah Fen ne “e Ee a Sneen wenee Sortie oo ee eres “F aot aad Te er een i rer tthe Com oor itm ie eg eonnereegill LEE RI SF ppeseprapagenrce ns . :