Los Angeles herald., 1892-02-14
PLAYS AND PLAYERS.

Theater-goers on the last night of an
engagement in this city are often
cheated. Their admission fee is OBJ
tanned frequently on nothing less than
false pretenses. refer to the practice
often noticed OF plays being cut and
parts slurred, and the performances
given hastily and carelessly, in order
that the company could take the late
train for the north on the same night.
People who wish to get their moneys
worth are advised to stay away from
last night performances, unless the
managers particularly advertise that the
play will be given in it's entirety and
will not be hurried. The local managers
are not to blame for this action on the
part of the companies which play at
their theaters, and they object to it as
much as do their patrons. The only way
to prevent being annoyed by such dis
honest treatment from the hands of the
managers of the companies is for people
to stay away on last nights unless, as
suggested above, the local managers in
their advertisements make themselves
personally responsible for the perform
rnce.
NV
1t is not always easy to discern the
vicious and the immoral. Probably few
of the hundreds who saw Mr.. Hoyt's
play, A Texas Steer, last week, con-
sidered it wicked production, but such
it is, undoubtedly. The most vulgar
leg-show of the day would not produce
as much lasting harm as this very
funny, very fnely-acted farce. Every
thing that makes life worth living is in
it ridiculed, and the greatest vices are
depicted as commonplace. Out of all
the male characters there is but one
who does not show himself to be dis
honorable, and he is not pictured as
being tempted to be otherwise.
The French dramatists make Jest of
woman's virtue habitually, it is true,
and are accordingly and deservedly of
fensive to people of refinement. There
is not play produced in Paris during a
year which could be given in New York
in literal translation on that account,
but we Americans, while claiming i'm
munity for woman's character on the
stage, are encouraging habit of pictur-
| ing our men as bribe-takers, thieves
and liars. 1t is seeing the mote in the
other fellows eye, unaffected by our
own visual beam to sneer at French
dramatic morality.
What is the typical American public
man as seen on the stage? consum-
mate rascal; and so with the business
man, and the professional man. Our
playwrights spare the women but they
do pose the men in mosS debasing atti-
tudes.
Hoyt's Distinguishing trait has hitherto
been catering of honest, healthy fun,
but he seems 10 be now suffering from a
severe attack of moral miasma. Not
content with picturing the ignoble as
humorous, he has in two instances be-
come purely vulgar. The people who
think it is funny for an actor to put a
cuspidore in froncof him and assume
an attitude and expression as ii to vomit
in it, when another character is asked
to sing, are not the people whose appro-
baton adds to dramatic representa-
tion. Such situations are very funny to
the audience at Barbary coast dive,
and it is in such places that they be-
long.
In Nanon it is very amusing and not
at all gross, when Hector is wounded
''in the hip" and the song and quaint
dance step accompanying it are delight
full. Butsuppose Hector had been brought
on as was the wounded Colonel Pepper
on A Texas Steer, the result would have
been possibly laugh from the gall
lery. but disgust in the dress circle.
x%x
Judging by the performance on Fri
J day evening, the Owl club needs some