Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-06-22


performers. Well, don't suppose l ca
, secure team equal to the Days. Thei
equals do not run around loose. And the
| want a sne soubrette, who can sing, an
who can act almost as we'll as Alma Stuar
Stanley. You remember her, of course
l am aware that it will be difficult to oh
tain her counterpart, for she was hand
some, clever and fine artist. But men
ton her as pattern after which | wisl
you to comprehend ! am modelling M,
leading soubrette.
"The fact is, am going to present Stan
ley Mckenna's piece, Painting Her Red
for three nights, with frst-ra.e cast, Jus
to see what is in it and what can be don
with it by careful organization, next season
If 1t goes-that Is to say, if it suggests Il
me the possibility of making a irst-rat
entertainment by the introduction OF cleve
people and bright music-I will do Jus
what ! did with tine Tourists in a Pull
man Palace Car set the ball in motion
and probably realize another fortune.
"You see they have all followed the ex
ample / set them with the Tourists $,
many years ago, and they have all growr
rich by doing so. l remember we'll how
the managers and sages of the profession
shook their heads and sneered at nv au
dacity in introducing as performers in .
play lot of variety people and specialists
The wiseacres predicted failure and disas
ter for me, but neither the one nor the othe,
overlook or blighted my enterprise Oh
the contrary, it was attended with munif
cent and magnificent success.
"Assuredly was the first to see that tn,
people who patronized high-priced theater
had never seen and could never be induced
to go to see our clever variety performer.
in their own places of amusement; there
fore l literally imported them into play
gave the entertainment name, called the
organization John p. Smiths Tourists IL
SO and so, and booked the show in the best
houses, with financial results unrivaled, i
not unparalleled, by those which have at
tended the similar efforts of those who
emulated my example.
Yes, | was the first to bottle the variety
lightning and to serve it out to the swell.
and best theatergoers of this country. Bu,
to hear the talk and read the billing and
vaporing of many others who have since
profited by my example and ideas, you
would imagine that had never given the
public The Tourists in the Palace Car
and that certain other gentlemen, who
have made money and modicum of fame
out of farce-comedies, as people call my
style of organization, were the pioneers in
this sort of theatrical entertainment.
"They are not On the contrary, they
have merely grasped what was presented
IN nd IL
their opportunities.
"With these farce-comedy purveyors it is
as it was with the managers of uncle
TOMS Cabin companies.
Several years ago it occurred to me that
a little realism in the cotton and planta-
tion scenes would naturally aid in properly
presenting dramatization of Mrs. Stoves
great novel. Consequently l went to work
and put in genuine colored people and
jubilee singers.
"Mark the result,
"At first everybody laughed at what they
were pleased to term my temerity. Oh!
this was an innovation, and it would not
work. Well, it did work, and the first
thing you and l knew everybody in the
business was anxious to produce Uncle
Toms Cabin with jubilee singers and
colored hands in the plantation scenes.
''But each copyist of my enterprise and
idea billed and pulled himself as if he had
Just thought of and exhibited the two.
"But l don't care," said Mr.. Smith
laughing good humoredly; ~ mention
these things here in connection with my
latest purpose. which, as l said, is to pre-
sent new farce-comedy, after subjectine
it to new kind of treatment at the hands
of my Tourists, and to say to you that in
the farce-comedy of to-day there is nothing
new under the SUM-"
Mr.. Smith was right, and know it
although each of the new performers and
arrangers of farce-comedies imagines that
he is giving something new theatrically to
the world at large.
Even in "The City Directory" there are
cheslnuts as old as the hills, but so well
roasted and dishe3 up that they have ac-
quired fresh flavor.
John F. Poole presented just such
scenes as those in the second act of the
piece when he was writing for the old
Tbeater Comique, and nearly all the
"turns" remind the habitue of the city
theaters of what he has seen at the Lon.
don, Miners and Pastors. The selections
from 'Pinafore," "The Gondoliers" and
other works are burlesqued in white face
just as the current operatic attractions
used to be burlesqued by the popular negro
minstrels ten years ago.
AS Mr.. Smith and his brother manager
said, "There is nothing new under the
sun" in the theatrical exploit itself.
They are wrong, however, when they
make the assertion so sweeping as to take
in the whole structure, from ticket office
to stage exit.
There are two very important new
things in the affair.
These are the auditors, which is the
greatest novelty, and the mode of treat.
ment, which is remarkable also
The entertainment presented at the
Bijou in the "City Directory" while va
riety, burlesque, speciality, musical gem
acrobatic and grotesque song and dance
and broad farce, is so deftly mixed and
blended that it comes upon the eyes and
ears of the audiences, who have rarely il
ever visited variety halls, as an absolute
novelty, and to such audiences at least
this is, after all, something new under the
SUM-
Mr.. Smith and other well-posted man.
ayers are right in the abstract, but wrong
in the concrete.
Nobody contended that the second mule
the second Marks, the lawyer and the sec.
ond bloodhound in "Uncle Toms Cabin
were new absolutely, since the first had
always been there as the original. Never
theless, the second were billed as novelties
and in concrete and material sense they
were brand new whenever they were in
troduced.
Still, even on the admission of the gay
and festive Mr.. Charles Reed himself
than whom there is nothing more refresh
ingly fresh among the freshest products O
fresh farce-comedy freshness, there is moth
ing new under the sun except the au
diences, who applaud the jokes he gather,
from others in his walks by day and re
produces at night.
This is his own ayowal, and it is in stric
accord with Mr.. William Shakespeare
about that mirror.
Mr. Reed has pocket mirror which h.
holds up to humorous human nature fol
farcical purposes.
And here is where his head is partieu
larly better than angular.
The artist who would adopt and accep
any managers or writer's dictum that ther,
is nothing new under the sun would sooI
have his salary cut down.