Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1893-07-02
FLIP -FLOPS IN SKIRTS.
AcaoBATIu GIRLS WHO PERFORM IN BALL
FROCKS
Their Brothers Assist Them in Evening Dress
Ground and Lofty Tumbling Without Tights
and Spanglss, on the Roof Garden Of the
New American Thsatre-ltisa Nov
city for Midsummer Night
MN HorL Advertiser.

The word acrobat calls up to the
| minds eve picture OF 1esh coiored
tights that encase swelling muscles; but
when the Frantz family glide out hand
| in hand before the footights in the roof
garden Of Mr.. French's American The
atre, unless you knew about these
clever young people, three women and
two men, you would fancy that they
were about to give musical entertain
ment or sketch" Appearances are
deceptive, and, as q daring Western
critic remarked that Herr PaderewsKfs
! hairy aureolo distinguished him from a
large band of equally competent plan
lists. so does the dress Of the Frantz
! family give them unique appearance
as well as distinction in their profession,
with the important difference that
they honestly occupy the pedestal to
which this popularity OF dress hrst
raised them.
1t seems absurd to think that these
| fresh-iaced, ladylike, bail costumed
young women and agile, evenlng-dress-
ed men are going to do anything but
give a refined sketch" As they trip
back to the center Of the stage the
themselves as il expecting to hear the
brother song to Daddy Won't Buy Me
Bow-Wow." Emily, well-built
woman OF twenty-three, steps Tor
ward as II she were TO sing solo,
when presto! she is performing SOLO,
In the air, so to speak, with the plaud-
its OF the excited audience for an ac-
commitment. Over and over she goes
in q series of somersaults so rapid that
Won are reminded OF tho clowns stick
and whirling ha. performance and won
der whether Richard or Pedro, her
brothers, is whirling her round with an
invisible stick. A chappie who has
taken too much lemonade voices the
sentiments of his crowd when he de-
clares that he isn't sure whether 1t is
the fringe of Miss Frantz's futterlng
dress that he sees most or her waving
back hair.
"The shock" as some old lady has
observed, sis startling, but not so start
ling that you can't get over IT," You do
get over it in q twinkling, because the
ease with which one of the girls next
climbs Richards back and somersaults
over to Pedro, six feet away, dissipates
all idea of effort and embarrassment OF
female impediments. 1t is a new sensa-
tion to see those young women somer-
sault, fipfap, take headong flights
through the air in dresses that display
onlv the tops of their boots, and wrlg-
Cling in their aerial passage like the
tails of dolphins !eaping from wave to
wave. What is the divided skirt COM
inQ to when women can dive and tum'
ble over each other as easily as
men? But, then, the physical culture
girl will be interested in knowing that
Il took the Frantz girls five or six years
to perfect their ten minutes act In con-
ventional garb.
There is not a seconds time lost In the
performance. While this act is going
on the other girls, Louise, the eldest
blonde apparently about twenty-seven
wears of age and the. strongest OF the
women, and Marie, a seventeen-year-
old lass, are racing around the stage In
head over heels somersaults at speed
that makes the audience dizzy. But
the endurance of these people is both
natural and acquired, il such an express
sion may be used. They were born
in the business and they inherit
the grace of their mother, the famous
Emily Guest, sister OF the Ia