Variety (Feb 1906)

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VARIETY = = = = = = By Chicot HYDE & BEHMAN'S. Smartness is always the quality of the I lytic & Behinan bill and this week's show includes plenty of comedy; Cressy and Dayne lead off the list with their sketch, •The New Depot," which is one of "The Village Lawyer" series and clever. Miss Dayne gets one good speech and handles it wellj*but for the better part she simply feeds Cressy his lines. Mr. -Cressy has the trick of making his points without the aid of a sledge hammer and his quiet reading of his lines is in refreshing con- trast to the more violent acting of others in similar work. The Elinore sisters have a lot of new talk and some which should he replaced with newer material. The act as it stands does not give Kate Elinore her share of the work. She is better when she is talking to the audience than when she talks to her daughter. She is always certain of a bull's eye hit, but with more and better material she could command even greater applause. May Elinore looks dainty in her boy's dress and shows a new page's costume that re- minds one of the late Bessie Bonehill. Carlin and Otto have changed some of their talk and now this department is more on a par with their capital parodies. It would pay them to leave out the talk and use more parodies if they can get more of the same sort. Men who can write or purchase parodies that are clever and original are rarities and these two men have some of the best now being sung on the stage. They are crisp, to the point and are not new versions of old joke material. Dorsh and Russell are working on their musical act all the time and man age to keep the act up to a proper fresh- ness. They are better musical perform- ers than the average and so make a double appeal. Paul Conchas was in trouble Monday evening. All jugglers are subject to off days when they drop things, but when Conchas begins it the people hurriedly vacate all rooms under the stage. It is one thing for a man to drop rubber balls, but when the Krupp shells begin to ^lide from their supports, the men who hold life insurance are thoughtful of their companies. Carroll Johnson has at last • hanged his recitation. There was a be- lief that if he ever forgot the story of the prize fight he would be forced to leave the stage. He is doing a racing story now, but the trouble is that he has picked out the poem which in slightly altered form is being used by Carew and Hayes. He should make another try for one not so familiar to vaudeville audiences. It would l>e better still if he forgot the recitation babit entirely and went in for songs and •lancing. Sailor and Barbaretto have a mCe little singing act spoiled by the last Song in which Miss Barbaretto makes faces at the audience in the belief that she is demonstrating her flexibility of expres- sion. A new sony would be vastly better. When Miss Barbaretto can sing as well as she does she should be provided with a more suitable selection. Both are clean cut and effective. The Kennard Brothers do some good and some bad acrobatic work. By cutting out the bad they could build up a good act. It is to be hoped ' bat they do so. GOTHAM. _ Over al I be cemetery end of Brooklyn, where Percy William runs the Gotham, the cold weather is having gome effect on the attendance, but a good offering brings out paying crowds. The Red Raven Cadets have the top place on the bill and offer a fair act which shows a larger proportion of tfood looking girls than any other girl act to strike town this season. The act was recruited out West, which may account for the new faces. They open with a march drill in close order in which they touch to the file leaders, but do not always keep perfect alignment. There is an over long display of gymnastics with guns which should be cut in two, and there is a double- time drill and a wall scaling. The last is a pitiful farce, for the wall is covered with battens and even then the girls climb as though they wore tight shoes. An escala- tor should be provided if they desire to re- tain this feature. The guns carry heavy blank charges and several rounds are fired. This is trying on the nerves of audiences in which women predominate. It would be better to simply use shells provided with percussion caps, but no powder charge. George W. Monroe is offering some new talk about where he got his automobile. He should take that routine over to one of the cemeteries and see that it is buried deep. It is quite the nastiest thing heard at a tfood house in the past year. He made a hit for all of that and stayed on twenty long minutes. Lawrence and Harrington have a new act. They, of course, retain the old tough features and the Seeing New York song in addition to a new one made up of the names of proprietary foods, medi- cines and whiskies. It is not clever. The dialogue lacks sprightliness, though the finish is good. A little work on the early talk and some new songs would re-establish them in favor. Leo Carillo has some capi- tal Chinese bits in which he uses both "pidgin" and real Chinese. He should hold to this end of the act and the auto imita- tion and not tell us how it sounded when he used to chase chickens on the farm. He gets away from the rest when he does the Chinese work and he should stay in a field where he has plenty of room. Alburtus and Millar open the show and the audience here liked the comedy. It will not be good comedy until it is more carefully worked. Couture and Gillette have a capital acro- batic act not alone showing some good work, but some comedy that does not tire because it is away from the labored stuff usually found in acta of this description. Mr. and Mrs. Harry Thome hold to "An Uptown Flat" and still gain laughs, though they have lost their finish, which now works so slowly that it permits the impres- sion they have made to deaden. They have been doing it for so long that they are to l>e excused for not taking an interest, but there is no excuse for not getting a new act when they must know a lot of old-timers. The Dixie serenaders, six negroes, hold the stage for twenty-eight minutes. One of the men sings a solo for which he should get six months. The rest of the time is occupied in chorus singing and a small minstrel show. The act is only of a fair vrade. BOWERY. They have the frankest sort of a show at Miner's Bowery this week. It is called the Star Show Girls and other things, but the one uientioued is the official title. The two fiarces just escape being good but failing that are not even half good and are entirely dependent upon sugges- tion for the laughs. The free and easy conversation is a shocking thing, and throughout the dialogue are scattered un- printable bits which do not add to the cleverness of the show or even to the laughs. The olio is a careless sort of thing with two sketches following each other and a dog and pony show on the program, but not on the stage. One would not be surprised to learn that the animal protecting society had interfered for the sake of the ponies' morals. The act to make the biggest showing was Ten Brooke, Lambert and Ten Brooke. Lam- bert is both a pianist and violinist of abil- ity, and he played a long selection to the entire satisfaction of the gallery, though as a rule the boys above do not approve of good music. His piano gymnastics es- tablished him in greater favor and he may be said to have scored what hit there was. Ten Brooke tried hard to be a comedian and the young woman displayed a voice of clarity, though of no great expression. The Toreador trio might have had a good act once. The better part of it was good when Junie McCree played it his second season east, but it has gone back badly since. An idea is borrowed from another good act when they take a suggestion from "The New Coachman." Marie Croix played the part of the wife with little ani- mation and less interest. She seemed to consider it sufficient if she read her lines. Victor Vainont played wildly in his en- deavor to suggest the jealous husband, and Charles Nichols started out well as the "dope" fiend but dropped the character be- fore he finished. With a little more care the act might be made mucJi hetrer. The lines should be pruned to give quickness of action and much should be eliminated. Carney and Waguer had a singing and dancing act in which they worked so hard that they were off in five minutes. The dancing is not of the best, but it was the one spot of real briskness in the entire show. . Nolan and White had a sketch crowded with suggestive remarks. They had not even an unclean cleverness to warrant their use, but it saved thinking out some good jokes. The best thing the company did was a gun drill and fancy march. There were evidences of careful training, but the marching lacked pre- cision, largely because the girls refused to guide on their pivots. They appeared to imagine that so long as they did not ab- solutely drop behind it was all right There were several song numbers that pleased, and John Cody, who was out of the olio was good as a Hebrew, except when he talked. The girls need a few new costumes, but they are a fairly personable lot. CORKS AND GRAU. It was a very quiet Human Corkscrew that slipped into his old place at the table last week. He looked wistfully at the brimming seidls but said nothing until the head of the table nodded to the waiter. When it came he gulped thirstily and set- tled back with a sigh of content. "I was out with a show," he said sud- denly. "I was to the Nelson Theatre, Springfield." "We told you if you kept plugging youM get it," declared the head of the table, en couragingly. "In the neck," assented Corks. "It was one of Bob Grau's shows. Say, that man ought to be the president of an insurance company. He's too good to be piking 'round in vaudeville. I bet if he was in his proper place they'd never investigate him. He'd just talk nice to the commit- tee and they'd apologize for taking up so much of his valuable time. "When he booked me I remembered a time before when I had to come back on my scenery and my real Eve's living pic- ture suit. I mentioned the fact to him, but he showed, me how a combination of unforeseen circumstances gave him the hoodoo, and I was sorry for him. He add- ed the old sixty to my contract, too, and made it two hundred. He could have made it for a million just as well. "Anyhow, I fell for it, and so did a lot of others, and we worked hard while Gran sat in his office and smoked. I don't know what he smoked, but I'd give an I. O. U. (his I. O. U.) to find out If I could get some of the same I'd be able to talk Percy Williams into giving me his circuit. "Not for me the sad face, though. 1 was foolish beyond belief, and I think the experience has cured me, but 1 bet you that he could talk me into the thing again and I'd go out in the same childish belief that I'd get what was coming to me. I would, too, for the glad hoot is coining to any fool what goes up against the game brace game more than once. "What chance have you got to get back at him? He doesn't keep it where you can find it, and he knows it and just chuckles. If that variety performers' or- ganization ever comes off I suppose Grau will land in a place where he can write one letter every second week instead of keep- ing the Broadway hotels poor using up their stationery, but in the meantime there's some of us who need money and haven't got it and one man whose got it and don't know how to use it. "And next time it will be just the same way. He can start out a show over the same route next week and In* can get good people to fall for his talk, and they'll come home sore and poor, and do it all over again. Next time I see him coming I'm going to stuff cotton in my ears and run like the devil." Then the fresh seidls came and Corks turned to other topics. Call Poli's no longer "the Peanut Cir- cuit." He is now among the "live ones." Coram, a foreign ventriloquist, is coming over through the agency of H. B. Marinelli. "He's good, but doesn't class with Prince," so says Marinelli's office here. R. A. Roberts is somewhat miffed over the action of the stage hands at Proc- tor's Newark theatre returning his tip to one of his own property men. As Mr. Roberts carries three men, handling all his material, there is no necessity for "tips" wherever he plays.