, 1892-03-30
NYM CRINKLES LETTER
Actresses Will Be Seen at Short
Range During the Fair.
THE DUDES WEEK OF WONDER.

OH amusement Center Changing.
NEW YORK, March 9.-wherever there 1.
a vacant lot made by fire on Broadway
there, before the bricks are cool, you will
find the manager and the speculator try
ing to get a long lease for a new theater
Theaters and hotels are Via New York 4,
becoming noted for. Mr.. T. Henry French
is to have a new one, and SO is Mr.. Frank
Sanger, OF the Broadway. might as well
include Mr.. Mansfield in this company,
for, although he has not picked out his lot
he has made up his min Then let MS re
member that the independent heater oi
Mr.. Sargent is coming along. The lease
OF the Berkeley lyceum viii only last until
another hotel burns Town and a site can be
obtained.
And here let me say as prophetically as
| dare that the future swell theater of
New York, the simon pure Belgravia,
whether endowed or not, viii be some
where near that magnificent park plaza
on ~Fifty-ninth street. That is the social
axis of the island. Mr.. Bourke Cochran,
who Is not 30 much an American as n
New Yorker, like all the faithful Tam
many tribe, thinks that Yonkers will be
the center in twenty-five years. But that
depends a good deal on the fellows at
Albany.
Mr.. T. Henry French, who is to build
the new Grand opera house on Forty-first
street, Is the richest manager in New
York, and has the credit OF being the
shrewdest financially. But he did not
make his money in management; he made
it in theatrical play brokerage. For years,
by means Of his Londo house, he got con-
troll of all the new foreign plays and
charged whatever royalties he pleased for
American production
TIL theatrical event of the week is the
advent Of Mr.. Augustus Pitou's new stock
company at the Union Square theater.
where be opened with a brace of light
dramas. Som interest attached to this
experiment because II successful here
Mr.. Pitou expects to be able to fill his time
in the contiguous large cities without hav-
ing to fill in with intermediate towns. A
stock company capable OF playing the
standard comedies and of casting a new
drama might, 1t is thought, find ample
work in Boston, Philadelphia, Brooklyn
and Cincinnati without bothering Chicago.
Mr.. Pitou has succeeded in securing
several excellent actors, and II he succeeds
in securing worthy plays there is no doubt
that he will be a large factor in the field
next season. At all events his success MS
a manager will, it is hoped, give him no
time to write plays himself. And in that
case, those men who can write them bet
ter may get the benefit of his executive
ability.
Mr.. Mansfield's "Ten Thousand a Year,
which proved a failure on the first night at
the Garden theater, will undoubtedly prove
n success on the fftieth night, for Mr..
Mansfield is one of those fellows who in
sist that n play is not written until it has
been on two months. The jolly way in
which he slashes, cuts up, turns over,
leaves out and puts in until he gets it all
right my admiration. Don
Juan" was written as a melodrama. 1t
didn't GO that way, so he made an extrav-
nganza of It. He produced Nero as a
tragedy. 1t didn't work well. and he was
just about to present it as a comic opea
with a skirt dance when Miss Sheridan
proposed 'Ten Thousand a Year" which
was produced as a comedy, and was
Topped over into n farce on the third night.
In the stage lexicon of this youth there is
no such word as fail. by Jove," he said
OF Richard Ill.," III It doesn't go as
Shakespeare III make it go as Dick Mans.
field"
Dicks ad%aptability to circumstances
makes his judgment as protean as his tai
ents.
This reminds me that the management
OF the Casino, after producing the monkey
shines otherwise known as Uncle Celes-
tin," which proved to critical Judgment a
mere revival of that now obsolete form of
skylarking which we used to call Ham
fat" has published a letter from the COM
poser Audran complimenting America on
its appreciation of his work. II Audran
could see his work he would not sing 80
wildly well. / have heard somewhere of a
man who. being kicked down two pairs of
stairs, picked himself up proudly and, look
ing at his watch, Remarked: by Jove, that
beats the record. / must have made twenty
revolutions to the secoldl"
The new Fifth Ayeuue theater which
has been so long building is going to open
in May with a revival Of one of Offenbach's
operas, which has been dashed with new
seasoning by that clever man, Mr.. FL. c..
Bunner, of Puck. Fancy the exhumation
OF Ofenbach at this day. 1t is to me like
buying last years almanac. But after all
comic opera has no regard to theme or mu-
sic or composer. 1t is the standing excuse
to exhibit pretty girls without frocks. No
matter who the author is, the visual plan
and material remain the same. The same
string of becchantes, the same pink flesh
ings and Hastings of skirts, and nobody
cares whether it is Pergolese or Eli Per
kins, SO that 1t run merrily into topical
song and skirt dance.
Anything coarser han "a Trip to China
town" has not been lone here outside OF
that popular resort Roster & Balls; but
It goes. One of the songs sung by a young
woman has this delicate refrain:
He tried to pull my leg,
But he never laid hands on me.
And 1t always goes to shrieks of admira.
ton.
Some moral statistician will yet give us
an enumeration of the slum side of New
York hat froths up in our popular amuse-
ments and flashes like a will-o'-the-wisp
along the purlieus of life.
The preparations for the dramatic fair
at the Madison Square garden go merrily
on. The subject takes up a large space in
the newspapers, n all the space report
ers" give their time to interviewing the
actresses who have it IL hand. Miss Alice
Fisher and Miss Georgia Cayvan get more
notoriety by this diversion than they could
ever get by their acting. The promised
personal exhibition is one OF exceptional
interest. We are to have all the we'll
known actresses at short range. The
whole garden, recently set with benches,
is now to be studded with booths Qnclud.
ing Agnes). You can then pay your money
and take your choice of caramels. Old
barriers will be broken down for sweet
charity's sake.
We can hobnob with Mrs Kendall for
twenty-five cents When she Is on her