Waterbury evening Democrat., 1893-10-28


WILLIAM FAvERsHAM.
Scott, Viola Allen, Mrs d. p. Bowers,
Odette Tyler, Edna Wallace Hopper Edith
Marion, Master John McKeever and little
Percita West.
The title of the play. The Younger
Son." is key to its theme, which is a
mothers love and devotion to her children
1t is in four acts and possesses unusual To-
cal interest, inasmuch as every scene is laid
in New York city.
The story is quite interesting. The hero
the younger son, unprecedented by Henry
Miller, is an ambitious artist, whose path
way is not entirely strewn with roses by
any means. He is in love with a particu-
larly attractive girl, Nell Armitage, an Or
phan Miss Viola Allen), for whose sake he
longs to become famous so that he may
ask her to share his lot in life. AS a means
to an end he paints her portrait and sends
it to an art exhibition. The picture finds a
ready purchaser, but it is not so much of a
recognition of the young artists ability as
might be imagined, for the man who
bought the painting secured it not on &C
count of its art qualities, but because he
has suddenly become infatuated with the
original.
He soon learns, however, that Miss Armi-
tage is in love with the young artist, but
slightest, and he therefore decides that his
best plan will be to get his rival out of the
way. He accordingly very generously offers
to send him to Italy. Naturally the artist
accepts this apparently disinterested offer,
and everything appears to be going along
nicely for the villain when his well laid
plans, like those of the oft quoted mice and
men, all gang aglee," and all of a sudden
at that
- I, 4.
tention, and of course everything comes
out all right in the end. The story offers
many opportunities for dramatic situa-
lions, and there is good deal of comedy in
the play. This is in the hands of w. II.
Crompton, Cyril Scott and Edna Wallace
Hopper. If Mr.. Crompton had never
played anything in his life but the one part
in Liberty Hail. the old bookseller, he
would be entitled to recognition as one of
the most clever actors of old mems char
acters on the American stage. As it is,
however, he has been seen in many similar
roles, and he is yet to score his first failure
Another new and exceedingly competent
member of the Empire theater stock COM
painy is William Faversham, whose acting
as the villainous Austrian count in Ar
istOcracy' was in my opinion, the best bit
of work contributed by any member of
that really notable cast. Mr.. Faversham is
conscientious to a degree, as any one who
saw him while he was with Augustus
PitOu's stock company will readily attest.
Mr.. Faversham is one of the most promis-
ingly coming of the younger set of
American actors
There is very little dependence to be
placed in the cabled reports published in
our daily papers of theatrical events on the
other side of the big pond. Everybody here
has been of the opinion that Gilbert and Sui
ivan new opera, L topia, Limited, was a
sort of an inotfensiVe failure in London,
where it was produced Il couple of weeks
ago. At least that was the impression
given by the cabled reports. The English
dramatic papers have just come to hand,
and they are almost unanimously of the
opinion that since the time of The Mi
kado," these two famous collaborators
have never turned out anything nearly so
good as the new opera, the scene of which
is laid in the South Sea islands. The book
is of course a satire.
had a conversation the other day with a
| gentleman who said that he had for many
years been interested in London music
halls. l asked him how he accounted for
the fact that that form of entertainment is
so much more profitable from manage
rial standpoint on the other side than here.
Its the salaries, my boy" said he. I'VE
simply laugh at your managers when they
come TO London and engage some woman
at a salary of $500 or more week on the
word of the artist that she receives that
amount for her services there. Usually
| their weekly income is less than third of
! that, and even then most of them manage
to scrape together that much only by doing
! a turn at two, three and sometimes four or
| five theaters every night.
Why" continued he, Il know of one
woman now in this country, who is said to
receive salary of between 800 and $500 a
week, who earned in London never more
than 500, and frequently, and might say
usually, not as much as that. No, my boy,
| the American halls take in more money
! than ours, but much less of it sticks to the
managers hands here. That is the differ
| ence. You have plenty of artists here who
suit your people better than the importa-
/ tions that you make, but you don't give
| your home talent a chance, and you have
| therefore to pay higher price for an infe-
rior article" This was both candid and
! true.