The record-union., 1891-03-22
music AND DRAMA.
Gillette's Comedy Hit " All the
Comforts of Home"

Again Amusements in the Great
American MetropoIis-Flashes From
the Footlights of Many Theaters.
A. P. Dunlap, writing from New York
on the 18th inst, speaks of the amuse-
ments of the week as follows:
Four new plays and shift at many
of the playhouses has made the
week exceedingly lively, although
all combined failed to draw heavy on
the amusement-loving public, This
plays Were serious in purpose, and
had not been ''circused," as are the pre-
vailing farce comedies. An afternoon
trial at the Lyceum Theater OF 1.-The Old,
Old Story" by Walter C. Bellows and
Benjamin Roeder, both Americans, was
given on Monday. 1t is another attempt
to mingle Wall street speculation with
love affairs, but the plot is improbable,
and the character unnatural. The play
runs one act over where it should end; it
lacks cumulative Interest, and the dla-
logue is commonplace and pointless.
at Hammerstein's Opera House the
first earnest and effective performance of
lbSen's 1.-THE Pillars of Society" was
given on Monday, although much of the
ethical quality of the great Norwegian's
composition seems to have proven un-
transferable to the Harlem stage. The
great masters work, however, was given
careful treatment, especially by John B.
Studley, Henrietta Vaders and j. II.
Ottomeyer, but as the characters repre-
sent people living near the very end of
civilization, and a people, too, who are
not dead certain whether Thor throws
his hammer from Walhalla when it thun-
ders, the flip acting of young New York
ers is not exactly in place. 1bsen is a
bold assailant and cruel eXposer of soci-
ETY., and his plays are like cream to the
SKINNED milk of the modern drama.
Not much wonder then that he is not
liked, and that many shrink from his
essays III social dissection. Still the fact
remains that his audiences are enthralled,
listen to every word in dead silence, and
begin to think it all out again after leav-
ing the theater.
Love and War;" an adaptation of NJ
Charton's 'Devant PEnnemi," by c..
Haddon Chambers, met its Sedan at the
Garden Theater also on Monday. The
original work no doubt touched the patri-
otism of the French in tender spot, but
the clever Englishman has utterly failed
TO impart its native strength, and Love
and War" has no chance whatever of sue
cess.
Wealth" was on Monday brought out
at Palmer's Theater, which has been
singularly unlucky this season in spite of
b. ). Willard, who has made a success in
the central characters of the plays pro-
duced, which have been financial failures.
He may by his admirable art buoy up
this play also, and draw most of the re-
fined and intellectual New York play
goers, but it is very doubtful if he can
even reach the level of success he did in
The Middleman" or "John Needham's
Double.' Wealth. was written by III.
md ha1 re, n,-ifr al a.,
ton at the Haymarket, in 1869. The
pivot of the plot is tilial affection con-
trasted with paternal sternness, time
honored theme, not very cleverly worked
up. Mr.. Willard. in this play, is too
melodramatic, but he demonstrates the
tineness of his art at every turn, and the
beauty of his method of acting surpasses
that OF any actor England has sent us.
at Days, shift was made from pam
tomlme 10 farce by the production of "a
Night OH," used as a stop-gap until
Loves Labor's Lost" is ready, probably
March 18th. Milton Mobiles From Sire
to Son" was seen for the first time in New
iork at Niblo's, and Lawrence Barrett
made shift in playing the Ghost to Mr.
Booths Hamlet.
Sunlight and Shadow" is still running
at the Madison Square, but to very small
audiences, and will be replaced on Mon
day by the ''Pharisee.'' ''All the Com
forts of Home" and Men and Women"
are both adding shekels to Charles Froh-
mans growing fortune, and the ''Nomi-
nee" at the BiJou is playing to the capac-
lty of the pretty little house.
ALL THE COMFORTS OF HOME"
Tomorrow night at the Metropolitan
Theater one ofthe biggest theatrical guns
OF the season will be fired. 1t will be the
first presentation in Sacramento of Will
lam Gillette's much talked of comedy hit
n Il a fnrl1t rtS ~
has first turned San Francisco topsy-tur-
vey with humorous ecstacy, and scored
the biggest light comedy success in the
history of the Baldwin Theater In New
\ ork and London it is the fashion" of
the day, and the subject of much critical
admiration. Gillette has proven himself
10 be one OF the clevereSt of American
dramatlsts. He has much of the skill of
the French in inventing amusing situa-
tlonS and carrying out an absurd plot
with fidelity to life. In his hands the
most preposterous improbabilities be-
come, while the play is progressing, real
ties, and the spectator does not realize
until the curtain has fallen the fantastic
and impossible character of the chain of
incidents he had SO ingeniously welded
together.
"All the Comforts of Home'' is of Ger
man orlgln-that is to say, the hint for the
piece has been taken from the work of a
1ogue and incidents are all Gillette's own.
The play is the most laughable that has
yet come from this clever writer's pen.
surprising in this respect, it is critically
conceded, the ever popular ''Private Sec
retary." The chief merit of the comedy
is the natural manner in which the situa-
tons arise, one out of another. There is
nothing in it that savors of the variety
nall, and although it is simon pure
farce, some of the scenes, especially those
IN which Theodore Bender is concern
ed, are as pure comedy as ''The School for
Scandal
Given a young man who, while in
charge of his absent uncle's furnished
dwelling, turns it into lodging-house,
the whole series of funny incidents re-
vealed in the story become at least possi-
BILE. Gillette's ingenuity is displayed in
the incessant evolution of new complica-
tons and surprises. His talent in this
respect resembles that of the French
master, Labiche.
For the Interpretation of the comedy
we are to have the original New Yori,
Company, which is the special pride of
Manager Charles F'rohman, and consid-
cred one OF the best companies ever or
ganized. 1t includes Henry Miller, Frank
T.. Lamb. Samuel Edwards, Kate Denim
Wilson. Maud Haslam. Marie GreenWaId
Lulu Klein, T. NJ. Hunter, Josephine
HUMPHREYS, j. B. Hollis, Herbert Az
ling, Kate Stevens, James Ricardo and
Is. L. Sherwood. The original scenery.
the same that graced the Baldwin Theater
engagement, will be brought on for the
occasion. Unless all the signs fail. to-
morrow night and Tuesday night at the
Metropolitan Theater will be conspicu-
ously brilliant, prosperous and happy.