The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1892-04-10
NYM CRINkLES LETTER
An English Rose" Which Is
an Irish Chestnut.
ANOTHER son OF HIS FATHER.
Aubrey Boucicault's Prospects as an
Actor-Mr. Pitou Has Wisely Selected
Players and Badly Selected Plays.
Clever Little Jane Stuart.

Clever Little Jane Stuart.
NEW YORK, March l6-From mere force
of habit the new production at Proctor's
theater was called a new play.
When tell you that The English Rose"
is an Irish chestnut you will know how
great a mistake force OF habit is response
BILE for.
Did anybody erer see anything new in an
Irish plays Does anybody who wants Irish
plays at all want anything news / think
not. You might as well talk about get
ting up a new Ten Commandments
Thera is a prevalent tradition that the
succession of Irish PLAYS ended with the
Colleen Bawn" 1t is mistake. The
interest of the public at large ilsy have
ended with that play, but the Colleen
Bawn" has been reproduced under hum
dred and fifty titles since. and nobody ever
had the hardihood TO put anything new
into it.
The object of interest in the play at Proc
tors was Aubrey Boucicault, = OF the
celebrated Dion.
Fancy q black eyed, 1.-THE and sinewy
STRIPPING, who looks nineteen and may be
who has something OF his IA
theirs impetuousness and quality of voice,
but who is lank, callow, undedged and UNI
sciplined-then you have young Bouci-
cault. But you must go farthts and inn
agine him in heroic rele. with horsemHn-
ship and lovemaking galore before You
can understand how he struck the first
nighters there assembled TO size him up.
So of eminent actors do not, l am sor
to saw, pan out eminently. We have an
L r. .hyoNY
Jr. Their fathers made two mistakes.
/ will mention one of them-they let their
sons 90 on the stage. Dramatic genius
discards heredity as a rule. III Edwin
Booth had had a son he would doubtless
make most excellent entry clerk. be-
lieve Lester Wallack's sons are estimable
and delightfully."- prosaic gen.
tlemen of uneventful industry.
Far be it from me 10 say that young
will never lie as great as his
father. Such an assertion would be wholly
gratuitous, seeing that the world has not
yet made up its mind just how great the
father was. That the young man will
prosper and die rich is manifest If he
sticks to Irish plays and doesn't try to inn
itate his father too closely.
In saying that there is nothing new IN
the English Rose" meant that its story
is of the oppressed Irish tenant and the
brutal English agent, with an Irish mob
of virtuous peasantry and constabulary
and an English girl beloved by an Irish
lad. You can write the play yourself with
this synopsis if you have time. But in the
middle of it was a horse. And the horse
won the triumph. What all the papers
called great scene was a supposed horse
race that takes place off the stage and in
which the Irish hero rides against the Eng
lish agent What we see is not the race
but the peasantry with sticks, bowling
and gesticulsting ia a compact mob and
giving US 10 understand very plainly that
if the English agent wins the race he will
be torn to pieces. Noise Of an unintelIi-
gible kind here makes great scene.
But enough about the Irish play. IT is
a sensational fad for gallery prejudice,
built upon the thesis that landlords are
enemies of the human race, and English
girls would be Irish If they could and es-
tablish squstter sovereignty in the Green
Isle.
Manager Pitou has got in here with his
stock company at the Union Square and
presented to New York farce called The
Last Straw" 1t was top heavy with good
players, but the UNDERMINING Of the play
was defective and light. Miss Seligman.
tervid. uneven actress of the tumultuous
school. had to do the farcical wife. That
in itself is the playing of a jig on church
organ. Farce is not her specially. Her
vibration is too large. IL was like heavy
weight in a cake walk
Seligman properly nurtured in the Lu-
cretia Borgia school would renew for US
some "reminiscences Of Lucille Western
Asked to gyrate in door slamning pas
quinade, she suggests freight train On n
picnic. OF course you don't look for touch
and go in Lady Macbeth, do you! And -
volatile effervescent Media is like Bob ,
Tngersoll's attacks ON Christianity, and
makes you ask with DIR. johnson why an
elephant should try to walk tight rope.
Mr.. Pitou's company Is good working
company without good working piece up
% date. What he has in his wastebaskst
cannot tell. All we can do with his ex-
pertinent at presen. il N count up the ex-
sellent actors misplaced This Is not sp-
probation: it is arithmetic.
However. n will not do to overlook enc
hing. Manager Pitou sprung UDe act
" hich little actress, Jane Stuart, had ali
he cards. This little woman Il the daugh-
er Of a New York politician. and when
sver she appears in a new role you will
ind the front seats and the boxes filed
With stalwsrt men, who roll up from the
.ustom bouse and the city hall and Tam
many 70 assist her.
Aside from. the g1sty vhiriwinds u con
fdence she j. most deserving artist. and
he came forward this time Ia a bit 0f
'eaIism from life and broke her heart sud
iuffered according 20 the new dicfum.
which insists that the stage shall Lot give
- things As they ought 20 b., but - they
lre.
She did e beautifully. The man she
owed turned cut 70 be a sordid cad. Just a.
men often do IN life. When be found she
lad no fortune he Tilted her. Then she
ax him make lore 20 her wealthy cousin
nd she oIlspsed-curtaini
II. while they were beng married. be
iAd swiped the altar cloth. Il would still
,e life, and If loves young dream had
nded suddenly In the hero BENG sent up
or ten years, ws shOald have ben follow {
ng the police reoord-
Life doezn round up anywhere "a the I
'o=sibls- Il gepezaily waliOus ia the 49, /
asa. and those reAiists xEo want 20 keep /
he stage along that to~pztk are af~sys /
elixhted 20 have their story cut Of with /
cheese knife, Izsi IS their grocer cs1ts olz 4
aoon-
Keep yo3r eye "a Jane Stuart. There .
II ! fnneh u her, pay.soaily. hsE On. Whist 4
load u a11is5is1zs ard ds*erminssi0n abe 4
srri@- X she do<4nt 81 there = VII 4