St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-11-22

making everlasting guys of themselves. Of
course they had provocation for excite
ment. They were s1urrying to catch
Hudson river boat, with the chances rather
against them, and their race against time
the length of the muddy wharf was a sight
to grin at. The fair and placid daughter
stood on deck in the attitude of picture
sweetly contemplating the wild efforts of
her progenitorS, but with her face I'M
wrnkled by the faintest, furthest wavelet
from their stormy emotion. A year ago
she might have displayed concern at the
prospect of being started on her journey
alone. But the new style of
UNALTERABLE CoAIPosURE
had been adopted by her and she had no
notion of letting any disaster render her.
old-fashioned. If the boiler of the boat had
burst she would have been seen rising
coyly and serenely with the steam, and if
she had come down to eternal smash her
remains would present the quivering but
still smooth and cool appearance of calf's-
foot jelly.
The only thing to be said against this en-
forced calmneSs is that it raises occasional
suspicious of idiocy Speaking of stolid
demeanor, saw an audience making fun
of the four professional beauties in the bur-
lesque ''Adonis" because of their vacuity of
prettiness and inert manners.
at is not always easy to tell exactly
where censure should be visited ON an IN
satisfactory performance on the stage" said
a veteran who sat beside me. ''HheSe girls
in the burlesque are supposed to be the four
daughters of a duchess, and are known as
four professional beauties. They have a
few lines to speak. bur enough to show that
they are considerably above the chorus, and
that there is no doubt that they could make
their parts stand out with some degree of
prominence if they acted cleverly But
they don't act. Two of them look bored.
another seems somewhat nervous, and the
fourth has and easy-going, careless air, as if
she had Just walked on the stage for the fun
of the thing, and viii be very well
pleased when she gets off. Intelligent
people consider the girls uncOmmonly stupid
and wonder how it is that four such obvious
aut0matons are employed. The explana-
nation is simple. Dixey is the star. He
has proprietary interest. The whole aim
of his performance is to make DiXey stand
out prominently. While it is necessary oc-
casionally for him to have some one to say
clever things to-, and to use as fools, the last
thing on earth that he desires is to have
anybody take the least bit of interest away
from him. DiXey has the center of the
stage on all occasions. and the four profess
sional beauties are ranged on either side or
among the chorus. Should one of them
dance bit cleyerly, say something bril-
liantly, or in any way attract the attention
of the audience, the point which DiXey was
making at that particular time would be lost.
Hence, Mr.. DiXey would suffer. and he is
not the man to suffer when he can help it.
Tie constant suppression of everybody in
the cast TO the elevation of a single per-
former is a good thing for the single
performer, but it's very hard on
the other people of the troupe.
The effect of keeping the four pro-
feSsiOnal beauties of 'AdoniS' down has
been rather curious The four originals
were bright and clever. but they were
gradually held down until three of them
left These three are all getting big salaries
and doing admirable work in other com
panies while the sole remaining member of
the original four goes placidly on her un-
eventfnl way, and doesn't seem to care q
copper whether school keeps or not. The
jealousy of theatrical people on a question
of this sort is astonishing to an outsider.
If one actor has q scene-that is, if the
lines deserve prominence and the ext
gencies of the play require that he should
be heard to adraniage-he will allow moth
inc TO interfere with his work He must
have the middle of the stage and the other
actors must stand near the footlightS. and
place him So that he may look toward the