Variety (Dec 1905)

VARIETY - By 6Hi60i PROCTOR'S FIFTY-EIGHTH STREET. Paul Conchas and Adele Ritchie share the biggest and blackest type at the Fifty-eighth Stieet this week, but there are other pebbles on The shore—to say rothlng of six or bcven different dis- tributions of gifts, from dolls for the girls at the Saturday matinee to smok- ing trays for the men Monday evening. Miss Ritchie's voice shows small dam- age from the recently announced pa- ralysis of the vocal cords. It is at times more nasal than Is approved by vocal authorities, but it is not a wreck. Miss Ritchie in her effort to convince her audience that she is not a condescend- ing prima donna, rendering her selec- tions in icy rigidity, goes to the other extreme and overacts. Her selections please and they are sung with excellent method. She is making good even for a large salary. Paul Conchas with his specialty more than pleased. He works tu flue effect and with his capital com- edy assistant makes appeal in both di- rections. Gillette's Dogs are as clever as ever, and the leaping dogs remain the real stars, though the pantomime draws the greater applause. Hines and Remington were a real hit with their old act freshened up with some new stuff. Earle Remington is bright if not beautiful, and she keeps the act new, though she would confer a favor by sending the kindling wood song to a bet- ter land. Greene and Werner were ex- plosive but good. The man appears to imagine that he can make up in volume what he lacks in quality of voice, and at times one wishes that he was further away. Greater restraint would give the act a finish It does not now possess. Eddie Girard and Jessie Gardner have changed their act about a little. Mr. Girard will never be able to get away from his Irish policeman and to some this character has become worse than tiresome, but he plays it with a finish that Is rare. Mr. and Mrs. Jlmmie Barry are showing their "Village out Up" for the first time here. The wouid-be-wlse country youth who knows all of the ac- tresses through the pictures in the Po- lice Gazette gives Mr. Barry a chance, but there are some jokes in the act good only to those with an intimate knowl- edge of show life In the small towns. The rest please city audiences, and the routine is better than the last they had. Still in the line of improvement will Mr. Barry please cut out the cheap and silly street car encore? Edestus with his balancing shows steady improvement, but is unfortunate that he has not been abroad for a couple of years. As an Im- ported act he could command a far bet- ter program place with the same work. Trovollo's new act has a real novelty in its dancing figure. The dummy is clev- erly worked and the effect is one of reality. Old jokes and stale songs hurt' an ambitious offering. There were also motion pictures. TONY PASTOR'S. Plenty of good acts are to be found at Pastor's this week, the top line attrac- tion being De Witt Burns and Torrance in a pretty little act suggestive of 'Babes in Toyland," but scarcely to be called a steal. It pleased much and de- served success. The extra attraction, Nan Engleton, will be found recorded in the New Act department. Jeannette Dupree, who has cut loose from bur- lesque companies, offers a singing spe- cialty. Her choice of songs could be im- proved upon, for she takes water at the last and after having sung the praises of beer, lauds the more plebeian fluid— principally for cooking purposes. In be- tween she sings "Jusqu'a la" from an- cient days. It gives her a good song; inucji better than the others she sings, but with better songs and a trifle more refinement of method Miss Dupree could make a hit of size and length. A sketch of the sort Marie Stuart plays might prove effective if she can forget the Australian Burlesquers and similar of- fenses. Kine and Gotthold sadly need a new sketch. This one they have has been pretty well worked out. It still s< pms to please, but a Pastor audience is famous for its loyalty to favorites. Reidy and Currier are in good voice and have a splendid selection of songs. The act is a good one and they profit try not trying to make a sketch out of a, singing act. Newell and Niblo do good work on the xylophones and better playing on saxaphones, specializing these two in- struments. Incidentally they do not play an overture on the xylophones, pre- ferring to make up a mediey of various bits. In truth they are friends of hu- manity. Harry B. Lester fared well with some imitations and winds up the first section of the programme. The lesser acts are less successful. Nibbe and Bordeau show a skit which is a hash of dialect. Mr. Nibbe would do better to stick to one character instead of showing how many types he could play if he had time. It suggests a one man opera without a change of costume, i he Paragon Trio offer some dancing of a sort and some talk that might as well be forgotten. Le Clair and West are an accident rather than an act. Frank Elmo narrowly escapes having a good act. He is a trifle too fond of mechanical magic, and there is a lack of cohesion. No matter how much the young woman who assists him desires to sing, she should not be permitted to. Even were she a better singer, a solo is out of place in a magical specialty. Kitty Hart is notable rather for her enunciation than her singing. You can actually tell what ehe is singing about. There are pic- tures at both ends of the bill. Mike Ber- nard should be given a solo. He is really one of the permanent attractions. "Special announcement." Robert Grau has not had a company out for more than a week. He must be con- templating* an extra large company next time. It is related of B. F. Keith that,at one time, objecting to the booking of an act, he gave as the reason "that I heard him call me names once in back." "Well, Mr. Keith," remarked the person seek- ing the booking, "if you decline to book everyone for that reason, you will have to close your houses." DEWEY. Changes have come on the burlesque stage in the past few years. A couple of years ago a show played without obscen- ity and with very little vulgarity would be the talk of the season. Now the shows are pretty fairly decent, and the Tiger Lilies at the Dewey this week offer a crude brand of farce and split skirts in- stead of full tights and slapstick com- edy. The first part, "The Disputed Check," is a condensation of a farce called "Two Jolly Rovers" (though Dan Gracey says he wrote it) and the after- piece recalls "The Strategists," "A Hot Old Time" and numerous other offer- ings. The humor of the latter- such as it is—lies in the pranks of a young male person who in turn makes up as his own father and the parent of his fiancee. It is a somewhat crude effort but pleases. The chorus is not smart working, though both the stage manager and the musical director appear to have been hard at work upon the troupe. The cos- tuming is very poorly done. In the olio the three La Maze Brothers calmly steai the billing of Rice and Prevost and come as close to "Bumpty Bumps" as the limited ability of the comedian will permit. They should cut it out. They could make appeal with their double table work and a more honest hit would be to their credit. There is some small proportion of acrobatic work that is good. Ada Burnett was well liked in songs. She has a compelling style and as a single act is better than when she and Dan Gracey did a sketch. Gracey confines himself to playing comedy leads in the farces, and he. too, profits by the change. The Musical Bells fall just short of being a big act. If they will work on their act they will be able to get important money. The ragtime play- ing shows skill and some appreciation of phrasing. They should work along this line to the- exclusion of the hand bells which they use for an opener. This set of bells is in poor tune. Their con- certina work was the worst thing they did. The Clarence Sisters waste valu- able time with a song. There is some skipping rcpe and step dances which serve letter, but if they were really im- ported from Australia, as the pro- gramme would lead us to believe, it was a waste of steamer tickets. We have equally poor artists here. Zara and Stetson do some very good baton jug gling, but have evidently had to cut down their act. It is as well, for a little of this sort of thing is a whole act and a lot of the same sort is a nuisance. Howell and Emerson do such good danc- ing that it is a pity thai they have to spoil it with a lot of talking. It works out a pretty fair olio. The farces might be Improved and there is plenty of room for better showing in the costumes of the choius. There is not one single dress that will pass as good. There was a large attendance, and it is evident that with a better class of shows the Dewey is doing a much better business CORKS REDIVIVUS. lie was a trifle threadbare and as he stood in the d<Jorway peering into the cafe, one might have supposed him to be some beggar debating the expediency of trying to "work" the room. Then his eye lit up and he advanced to a table with the air of one assured of a welcome. It was not the sam? old table, and Frit/, the fat, but human, waiter had gone to his earthly reward in the shape of an uptown all-night restaurant, but there was still some of the gang left and ther.' were seidls, beaded with beery perspira- tion, on the table. "Yes," explained the Human Cork- screw, "it's me over the home plate at last, i never did have no luck—until now," he added as the new'waiter hovM into the offing with a froth-topped cylin- der of crystal. "It was me to the land f where they fly the red, white and green flag, and it was me for the green. "Say, down there where they manufac- ture 'greasers' and call them Mexicans, they make you deliver the goods. If you have a three sheet with an earth- quake and don't deliver a real earth- quake, it's you for the Jail for life or until they get tired of paying your bi;ard and take you out and shoot you. I had a three sheet of my garden of Eden act where I do a contortion act to a real Eve. Just because Eve wore a picture suit they pinched me. If she'd been **)« real thiug they'd have pinched me nv way. It was me la a 'dobe jail for two years. I Just got back When I saw the town—it was like a seidl in Sahara. "It v.as ine for the real paprra ai:d the first thing to hit the eye is the color lino. After that sojourn with the pulqu > gulpers I never want to see a brunette again—never again, even if it does m?an a lost week. It's not a color line for me—just a horrible memory of a land where the military uniform is a pair of pants and a sword. They all of 'em have the sword; even the low privates. "Ail the same it must gall to see some chap who might be a waiter if it wasn't for the variety stage copping the money that ought to go to ua if it wasn't for the coons and the dramatic headliners. It must kinder hurt to see the black type goin* to the black man and the white man getting the yellow or mulatto end, but they seem to hit the bank roll for about all they need for crap money, while the chap with the white skin and •he old act can go yell all he wants to. "Williams and Walker pulled down $1,750 from Willie Hammersteln and $2,- 000 from Proctor. That's the answer. What's the question?" and Corks buried his face in the seidl of beer. Geo. M. Cohan is supposed to have written Tod Sloan's monologue. . If ho did, he isn't bragging about it. A peculiar happening of the opening night at the Hippodrome was the vicious rush from the wings of a bulldog at one of Miss Marquis' ponies during her performance. The pony struck the dog with his hoof, and then trotted around the ring with the dog after It, snapping and snarling. The attendants appeared completely confused, and It broke up the act for a few seconds until the pony and dog, still fighting, were led from the stage.