Variety (November 1908)

14 VARIETY NEW ACTS NEXT WEEK Initial Presentation, Pint Appearance or Reappearance in or Around Vow York City. ' "The Patriot," Fifth Avenue. "The Gibton Girl Review," 126th Street. Annette Keuerman, Fifth Avenue. Two Vindobonos, Colonial. D'Arc'i Marionettes, Lincoln Square. Gertrude Gotham, Lincoln Square. Count Do Buts and Bro., Orpheum. Standard Four, Greenpoint. Mamie Lafferty, New Brunswick. Pearl Do Forest and Co, Perth Amboy. Geo. Banks, Perth Amboy. Maude Odell and Co. (3). •The Chameleon" (Sketch), as Mint.; Full Stage (Parlor). Lincoln Square. After all the ravings about the ten thousand dollars which Maude Odell is claimed to' have won through her phis and Jigger, Maude ■truck the Lincoln Squaro on the air line from The Strand, and turned out what is technically known as "a flop." There need be no argument aa to whether Maudie is physically perfect. No one cares whether her forearm meas- ures 6%, or her calf 121-16. Her flgger is her own. The press work in connection with the "$10,000 Beauty'' brought out some people who expected to see one of those women who could climb into one of those clinging gowns with something swagger in the millinery line above it, and then look the part. Maude is tall, too tall, and she is rather good looking, but not shockingly so. Maudie has a picture face, a face which looks better in a frame, and oho makes a mistake in bringing it out of there. The draperies Maudie wore could not have been more harmless if placed over a statue on a dark night. Someone wrote a sketch around the girl's poses. Three people besides Maudie are required to play it. One is a French maid with bundles of talk to get rid of. She looked very neat beside the "$10,000 Beauty." Many would quote her at $12,600 based upon the standard of value set by Maudie. The entire sketch might be dumped over- board*. The only thing it has done is to bring out the worst brand of acting vaudeville has ever seen (and there have been some corkers). Even the old man sitting at his fireside smoking the old pipe and seeing Maudie's poses in his dreams would be an improvement. The audience Monday evening accepted the af- fair as a joke. When Miss Odell removed her dress at the opening the laugh was so boisterous it halted her "lines." In its present shape, or around Maudie's shape, the act may attract attention for a little time. Daah. Welsh Miller. Palming and Magic. 17 Mins.; Two. Hudson, Union Hill. A new palmer has arrived in Welsh Miller. He is from the West, according to understanding. There is some palming of coins, with a new trick or two in the manipulation; also some slight magic Mr. Miller will have to study up the Eastern ways before hoping to cope with others in his line around here. Sime. [ NEW AGTS OP THE WEEK j Walter C. Kelly. "The Virginia Judge." Character Stories. One; 25 Mins. Colonial. "He's great; he's great" could be heard all over the Colonial orchestra Monday evening as Walter C. Kelly unreeled the best, brightest and most humorous char- acter stories ever told upon a stage. Each was original, all taken in his role of the Virginia judge holding court. There have been other dialecticians who have held to one characterisation throughout (like the late and great John W. Kelly and others of the present day), but there is no one who takes in the scope of Mr. Kelly's keeping the humor at the highest pitch. His stories have such sharply drawn bright points that the laughs frequently held Mr. Kelly up during the recital. He offers an unequaled amount of pure en- joyment during his fifteen minutes. Many things cause an audience to applaud; how many can make an audience laugh out of sheer enjoyment? Kelly can, does and will—any audience, anywhere. This week, on his reappearance after a trip abroad, Mr. Kelly has inserted a touch of the German for the first time, in con- nection with a "hick" actor reciting his troubles to the bench. Nothing funnier nor more luminous in technical slang has even been uttered on the platform, and it "got over," every word of it. The best points were caught so quickly one might have imagined the Monday night house held a crowd of professionals only. Walter C. Kelly is a great big laughing hit; there is no entertainer, in vaudeville or out, who outranks him. By permission of Mr. Kelly, the explanation of the "hick" to the judge, which follows, is printed. It is not in manuscript and was taken from Mr. Kelly's dictation. He restricts it absolutely to himself: Well, Your Honor, I don't want to do any Cary stuff. I just want to put you jerry to this boob. I am doing a dancing turn down here at Baron's Honky-tonk and I don't want to make any crack about my dancing, but I can make Pat Rooney look like a cripple when I get to shaking my Douglases. You see, I dove into this slab Monday morning to break a jump between Baltimore and Atlanta and you've got to board in the joint while playing there, so I go up at noon to gargle with a little hash and there's a bunch of soubrettes in ahead of me who have been taking encores on the chicken. The landlady slips me a very tough section of it and she's got some phoney Wooster sauce on the table. She's trying to warm up to me on account of being the big feature, see. She says, "Anything I can do for you, Mr. Scott?" I says "Yes, kid. You's better slip me that linament until I chloroform this eagle." Well, that broke up the food number. I go down stairs to rehearse and I get a peak at this pretzel baker. I slip him my music and tell him just what I want. Well, he's playing a dead march when I break into my dance, that's all; just crabbed my double-shuffle and that's always good for four bows in any swell dump. Well, I let him get away with that. After me turn I duck into the bar to lick up a scuttle of suds be- fore I flirt with the mattress. Mister Leader is in there with his face buried in a bowl of hops. I says to him very soft pedal: "Up stage, cull; I want a rehearsal with you." He tries to slip me a rain check, so I fold up my lunch hooks and just plant them in his map. He does an exit and I after him. We do a Marathon up the pike when we bump into one of your three-sheets in blue and he tags the pair of us. The Jutyj.— 'What I want to know is how the trouble started? Hick, —Well, what' have I been doing, singing "School Days"? Sime. Jules Garrison and Co. (a). "After the Play" (Dramatic Comedy). 17 Mins.; Four. Hudson, Union HilL In his new piece at the Hudson this week Jules Garrison is propounding a question: Do newsboys like "Virginius" the night before Christmas? Up to Tues- day evening Mr. Garrison had not solved the problem, for he waa still trying. The company is two small children, cute little youngsters, a boy and girl, Albert and Jeanette Hackett. One plays a boot- black, the other a newsboy, and both do well, even for children. It is a "bare- stage act" in its way, showing the stage bare with the exception of a table upon which is piled many unopened bottles of Christmas cheer and some "prop" fruit. Mr. Garrison has finished the evening per- formance. He enters the stage in a Tux- edo, wearing an opera hat. The news- boy and bootblack are driven into the theatre by the cold. They tell the actor how good he is and how sorry they are the admission to the gallery is a quarter because that prevents them from seeing his show. The actor is much impressed with the youthful street venders of papers and shines. He also remarks about having lost a wife and child at sea, someone having informed him by wireless about having dropped forget-me-nots over the side of a boat where they were buried in the watery depths (pathos). The actor, with Christmas coming on, informs the newsboy he will give them a show, when the kid brings in about twenty other newsies (supers, all kids), who squat themselves around the table hold- ing the "prop" fruit and unopened liquor- holders. Before illustrating how he can act, however, Garrison recites "The News- boy," written by R. L. Cary, which says a newsboy has "the makings of a man." In order that the children shall not be deprived of the pleasure of the play, the actor delivers a few lines from "Vir- ginius" in costume, then sends the chil- dren home, after once more donning the evening clothes. "After the Play" will be all right for the small time if these two Hackett children are retained in it. The sketch will be bettered also if Mr. Garrison will decide that neither children nor adults care to hear him as "Vir- ginius." The recitation does well enough, although there is no necessity to grow excited in it. In short, the more Mr. Garrison allows the children to do the better "After the Play" will be. Sime. Al Haynes and Julia Redmond Co. (1). "The Critic and the Girl" (Farce Com- edy). 16 Mine.; Four (Office). Hudson, Union Hill. A "rock-bottom fact" is claimed for the foundation of "The Critic and the Girl," the new sketch of the Haynes and Redmond Co., wiittcn by Mr. Haynes, the exact nature of which fact isn't dis- closed during the proceedings, although several crop up, some perhaps actual facts and others visionary. Miss Redmond is "The Great Lulu, a free and easy vaude- villian," who is playing "three-a-day," so the scene must be laid in either Boston or Philadelphia. The program doesnt tell where, and there are no "three-a-day" houses in New York any mora. But back to Lulu. She enters the office of one Robert Farwell, a dramatic critic. After a little salve over Robert, Lulu invites him to see her act that evening, and for supper after, with the ulterior purpose of inducing the critic to give her a good notice. She also gets a twenty-dollar bill out of him. Of course, the last isn't regular, natural or possible, with a dra- matic critic or any other kind, but that supper invitation opens up a new line of thought. It might happen in a play or sketch, but from personal knowledge there is no rush of vaudeville young women to invite critics out to dine. What is a little thing like a good notice along- side of a feed? But Farwell didn't see Lulu do her act, nor did he have the free lunch, for his wife popped in, piled up some complications, which Lulu squared, including the explanation of a message stating the husband had arrived safely in Newburg to offset his absence while keep- ing the "date." There isn't any action to speak of in the piece, which isn't at all badly written, although not in line for high honors. Besides the principals, Ger- trude Kirksey played the wife of the critic in a handsome black gown, which must have cost a lot of money, for Miss Kirksey is a very tall woman. She's good looking, too. Wives with her looks and that kind of a dress don't belong to critics. Sime. Clarence Sisters. Transformation Singing and Dancing. Hudson, Union Hill. The final scene of the new act brought out by the Clarence Sisters, where they introduce a pony upon the stage after a quick transformation of scenery and cos- tume, appearing as a cowboy and girl respectively, concluding with a neat skip- ping rope dance, caused the girls to be the hit of the Hudson bill this week. Prior to that time, while the young women have an excellent idea, it had not worked out well enough yet. The open- ing, particularly where they are under- dressed so muchly they look bulky, must be corrected somehow, and a nurse's uni- form afterwards did not seem to relieve the load greatly. The girls should either add to or back up from the Western scene. It is far away the best thing in the number. Formerly the Clarence Sis- ters were known as "The Australian Nug- gets." They have decidedly gone ahead with this act, which depends upon rapid transformations of scenery and dresses while the stage is temporarily darkened. They ought to bring it around into an act which will be in demand. Sime.