Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1891-10-10
THEATRICAL GOSSIP.
The Difference Between the Lady
Actress and the Actress Lady.
BEHIND THE FOOTL1GHTS
Some Of the Peculiarities OF Stage Life-Elsie
De Woff's Failure and Blanch walsh's Sue
cess-Tights and Third Story Dressing
demonstrating In Public Placea


| been FOR years or ever since the advent of Mrs
Potter on the professional stage the leading
amateur actress in that self-assertive and often
ridiculous clique Of society, the four hundred
The De VOLTS were almost painfully modish,
| but, as often happens in our imitation aristoc.
| racy they were not rich. Therefore, when the
head of the family died, Elsie resolved to go on
| the regular stage. Some of her swell friends
provided the money to maintain her in Paris
for year, where she might get dramatic train
| ing from the best experts.
Well, she has made her professional debut as
the heroine Of Sardou's 'Thermidor," and her
failure is SO complete and decisive that her
career as salaried actress may be set down as
beginning and ending with her present en-
gagement As many of the four hundred as
| have come back to town from Lenox which is
the place OF their annual residence in Septem-
Der and October, go to the theater where she
| is acting and applaud her with generous SYM
patty, but, truth to tell, her performance
doesn't give the faintest or remotest indica-
ton OF Unborn or acquired facility an actress.
This production of 'Thermidor" is in every
| respect as brilliantly artistic an achievement
| as we have lately had in New York theatricals,
and to the iasco Of the genteel ladylike and
| well-intentioned Miss De Wolf is the more pro-
nounced by contrast.
DIFFERENT IN THE DRAWING ROOM.
fact which may seem singular to general
readers, but which is well understood by stage
| experts. is that the good breeding and educated
| intellectually Of Miss De Wolf prove of no APP
preclable value in her venture. Ever since
| childhood she has been a lady in a social circle
which, although subjected to irreverent jest
and comic caricature, still embodies q large
amount of real American Rentility. Your cor
respondent has had more than one occasion to
observe her in q grand drawing room, where
she showed the most perfect imaginable grace,
self-possession and distinguishment of man
ners Nevertheless on the stage she is pain
iuily awkward. as mechanical in movement as a
| 1ointed doll and suggesting in no way that she
Is lady accustomed to suavity. smoothness
and what we regard as aristocratic airs.
FooTLIsHr QUEEN FROM THE SIXTH WARD.
II happens that at another theater we have
the rather Respondent revival of "Amy Rob-
sart" dramatization of SCOTS famous novel,
in which Queen Elizabeth is a character
Blanch Walsh is the actress to whom the role
| OF this famous queen is assigned. She repre-
| selts the grand airs and Impressive deport-
ment OF feminine majesty, without touch of
exaggerative caricature, but in a way which
might easily convince an observer that she was
necessarily born and bred lady The fact is
that Miss Walsh is a daughter Of one of our low
down politicians, known rs Fatty Walsh" a
Keeper OF tough saloons and disreputable Ramb-
ling houses in the sixth ward. which includes
the once infamous Five Points, Chatham Square
and the very worst portion of the Bowery.
Fatty has been for long, long time one of our
typical tough East Side citizens. His daughter
grew up sixth warder, with no possible asso-
citation with fashionable people, nor with any
facilities of becoming "a LADY, in the re-
stricted and conventional sense Of the term OF
course, she received fair education, and she
may have had no sympathy or utilization with her
tough neighbors; but the fact remains that she
Is product Of the worst ward in all New York
Nevertheless, she is able to depict the charac-
ter Of Queen Elizabeth without afaw in its lady
like impressiveness There you have two sin
GUAR Illustrations Of the fact that
from nothing else than natural aptness,
developed by purely theatrical training. Miss
DeWolf, an exponent Of the best department of
the -four hundred" in private life, might as
well have been a washerwoman for all indica-
ton that she gives Of good breeding, while
Miss Walsh, daughter of the sixth wards
Fatty" Is a footlight queen.
WRECKED BY HOT WEATHER
No shipwrecked mariners ever hailed the
sunshine after storm with half the Joy that
the theatrical managers have felt during this
weeks cool weather after the preceding two
weeks OF unreasonable heat. The published
news Of the collapses Of many travelling COM
panies indicates the financial ruin caused by
torrid theaters at the end of September. but
today by the superintendent Of a telegraph
office In the upper Broadway region Of the the
atrical business.
Il can't, in business honor. give particulars. ~
ne said, but can tell you that never in all my
Geographic services have known of the wires
having greater number of frantic appeals for
money than during the past ten days 1t seems
as though most OF the travelling theatrical COM
panies had exhausted their capital or very
nearly 30 in getting ready to start out for the
a md had fa6
ness at time OF the year when, generally peo-
pie are hungry for stage shows. Well, the hot
weather scorched them awfully. Every night
messages from companies on tour come in here
Addressed to their hackers or friends calling
plteously Tor quick remittances of money.
have had such an insight into the realities OF
theatricals as would astound the public Why,
some OF the most popular and ordinarily pros
porous OF the stage ventures which In q cool
September would have earned profits have been
compelled to draw upon their proprietors.
These capitalists have responded, Of course,
with promptness and no great alarm. But it is
different with the majority. Sometimes as
many as dozen kilograms are exchanged in a
single night between the hacker here and the
manager away OF somewhere on the road-the
one telegraphing, in manifest desperation, that
he can't get q show to the next town unless
money is wired to him, and the other fighting
on the necessity to the uttermost. In some in
stances the all but stranded party telegraphs in
a.
venture at all, just as tramp will grab at the
lapel OF an old acquaintance and pour into
his ear the woeful tale OF bad luck"
SURVIVAL OF THE FIrrEsr
One Of our ablest and richest managers said:
''The hot spell will prove good thing for the
atrical audiences and for worthy theatrical
shows. The weakest have succumbed. This
Is bad for the weakest Of course. but it
strengthens the stronger by lessening com petit
ton and thereby leaving the field more nearly
clear to good entertainments. The really
meritorious things when EMBARRASSED by the
unexpectedly small receipts OF this hot spell,
have obtained the necessary additional capital
| without much difficulty. II the original back.
| ers have weakened, shrewd men with money
have stood ready to take their places But the
worst enterprises, and all those that were
below middling, have not been able to secure
| additional capital and are therefore dropping
| out Of existence more numerously than was
ever before known thus early in a season"
| NOT MEANT TO CLIMB STAIRS IN.
The dressing rooms in one of the principal
theaters Of the city are away up three long
flights Of stairs and the artists that play in that
house are loud In their denuncistion of II on
| this account. A comic opera company has
| been there Of late and the girls have been in
\ misery over the necessity OF climbing those
stairs three or four times of night. At the
| first performance OF the company an incident
| occurred that created great excitement among
the members Of the company and made any
quantity Of food for gossip. One Of the lead
ing singers in the troupe Is tall, beautifully
made yOung woman. who aOpears in the o,,ars