Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-05-25


BIJoU THEATER. 'One of the Finest,
GRAND OPERA HOUSE. 80. "Fantasma"
HAIRS rHEATER. ........ 'Streets Of New York;
ACADEMY OF MUSIC. .Hyde's Speciality Company
WORLDS MUSEUM. .Curiosities, Etc.
The above are the attractions for this week.
So
The Duquesne Thsater is not progressing as
fast as we we're told 1t would. There are many
people. OF course, who are not very anxious to
SEQ it built. and they do not 60 out of their way
to encourage Mr.. Henderson in his undertak-
ing. Still. we should like to see the actual
erection Of the theater begun. Yesterday 1t
was said that even the plans for the new house
have not been adopted yet. Time flies. and If
the Duquesne Theater Is to be built by October,
at least the plans ought to be ready now.
A New York correspondent writes: Mr..
Clyde Fitch, an American dramatist, lie. be-
lieve, the first to build play around the we'll
dressed cad known in his history as Beau
Brummell." and he has written very bright
four-act comedy about him, which Mr.. Richard
Mansfield produced for tbs first time at the
Madison Square Theater on Monday. Had Mr..
Fitch stuck close to the impudent and vulgar
original, his play would have been great, and
Mr.. Mansfield would have been able to give
true portraiture of a snob who made the as
ridiculous that few men Of keen sense cared
afterward for the title, at least as a class dis
tinotion. As it is, the play is q dainty picture
of costumes used in England at the beginning of
the century draped about an imiginsry person
as unlike the true George Bryan Brummell as a
Dutchman would be to an Englishman. In fact
the character, during the first acts. smacks
more of q Continental dude than of an English
fop Of 1876 and hence the production, no mat
ter how meritorious. will never become last
ing success. 1t is in the last act, when the
broken Beau is at Caen, that Mr.. Mansfield is at
his best, and for this Mr.. Fitch has evolved a
poetic ending. with George ~. and his court in
the attic, bringing down the curtain on an in
vitation from the King to dine the next day
with him in London. Very pretty indeed, if the
average schoolboy did not know that the con-
temptible blackmailer died at Hospioe du Bon
Sauvear "a years after his flight from England,
the plague of everyone that knew him. Mr..
Mansfeld's clever personation of the last of the
beaux will, however, be largely patronized by
the Anglo-maniacs who still worship Brummell
for his happy invention of the trousers, in
which, strictly speaking, he was not original, as
he introduced them from Germany.
The hot weather will play the dickens with
the audiences at our theaters. If the theaters
were to be all closed by June l nobody would
suffer The theatrical season is really at An
end now.
II the wit in DeWolf Hopper's new comic
opera, Castles in the Air." is not above some
specimens printed in the East, it must take an
awful lot of athletic humor to make the piece
go. Here are three samples:
HE talks English, looks German, dresses
italian and walks Spanish. He must be an
Americana
Here's to . long life and merry one, a
quick death and happy one, true girl and
':March~Forwardr' to the audisnce) Pm
getting to dislike that army. I'd swop it for a
good tip on the Suburban tomorrow"
It will be remembered when Miss RoaN.
Vokes landed in this country i've or six years
GO with a company of amateurs, one of her
bright particular stars was little Weldon
Grossmith. His impersonation of the lordlet
in THE Pantomime Rehearsal" took everyone
by storm. and his gag "wot wot" passed into
the venarcular. Mr.. Grossmith returned to
London about three years ago, and ever since
then, with one exception, at the Gaiety hea-
ter. has made q series of successes notably so
in Henry Arthur Jones' play of Wealth" !" and
in Aunt Jack" His latest achievement how
ever has put him in the very front rank Of eccen.
tric comedians. The part he scored so heavily
In is that of the little Jew money. lender with
social aspirations, in Mr.. Pinero's new play,
"The Cabinet Minister" recently produced at
the Court Theater in London. The whole Lon
don press not only WIS unanimous in their
praise of his performance, but says it stands
out first in the cast, and went along way to-
ward saving the piece, which, by the by, with
its cast of 10 people, most of them star parts,
and its total absence of dramatic interest, would
never have been heard Of again had it not been
for its wealth of some of the most brilliant dia-
logue ever heard on . stage.
So
It remains to be seen how zone of the Fin
est'' without Gus Williams, but with a tank,
compares with the same play with Gus WILL
Jams and without tank.
HEPBURN JOHNS.