The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1896-09-01
PLAYS At THE
CITY THEATERS,
Nine. Sans Gene" Makes
a Hit at the Baldwin
Last Night.
MISS KIDDER'S SUCCESS
The Alcazar Opens Again With
a Fine New Stock
Company.
TURNED UP" A FUNNY FARCE
Second Week of "Social Trust" at
the Columb ia-New Bills at
Other Places.
TURNED UP" A FUNNY FARCE

Not since the initial appearance of John
Drew as d star has the Baldwin held so
brilliant an audience as the one that
greeted the opening performance OF the
Sans Gene" company last evening. Scat
tered all over the house were handsomely
gowned women, representatives OF the
local 400
As is usual with fashionable audience,
the curtain had risen on the stirring first
scene of the drama and not one-tenth of
the audience was as vet seated. In fact.
the prologue was nearly over before the
fashionable procession down the center
aisle had ended.
Sardou wrote mime. Sans Gene" when
the recent Napoleon craze was at it's
height, but we are still too near the days
of the First Empire for a drsmatist to pre-
sumo to take poetic license with the mem
DRY of lie petit caporai, which perhaps &C.
counts for the fact that Napoleon has not
been made the central figure OF the play.
Nine. Sans Gene, the wife of one of his
marshals, appears in that capacity, and
with her brilliant Napol comic background
she quite captured her first San Francisco
audience.
The background had good deal to do
with last nights success, for Mime Sans
Gene" Is to great extent series of gor-
geous tableaux, with one figure, that of
the ex-washerwoman, standing out warm
and ifeIike among the other somewhat
stilted dramatis persona, who give one
the impression of being on continual
dress parade. One had TO look round at
the familiar stalls and boxes to be quite
sure that the house was really the Bald
win and not DTury Lane, in the days
when the late lamented Sir Augustus
Harris spent money like water in mount
ing his productions.
Such velvets and satins, wards and
yards OF them trailing over the stage in
regal magnihcence. Such jewelry! to look
at it made one wink and blink! Such uni
10 rms! and they were not made according
to the costumer's fervid imagination, either;
they were copies from the pomp and panoply
OF war in which Napoleon decked out mis-
grande armee-lancers, hussars Dragons
spurred ana booted, glittering with gold and
silver, and many of them made UP as very
good counterparts OF the historic people thew
represented.
The staging of "Mme Sans Gene, was &C
gorgeous its costuming; indeed, really
beautiful reproductions were given of rooms
in the historic chateau OF Compeigne, and the
stirring scene in the prologue, with the SOL
diers aud the singing OF the "Marse!llelse." was
excellently done.
But after all "the plays the thing" and II
seems though Sardou must have been think
ing, when he wrote "Sans Gene" of the advice
given by the husband of a great nrims
donna to his wife's impresario: Get
Sans Gene herself and very little else aud that
several of the other performers were anyfbinp
but sticks is not Sardou's fault for he gave
them very few opportunities for displaying
Ia emit
Sans Gene being the central figure of the |
play 1t follows that the success Of the per-
Torrance depended largely upon Miss Kath'rvn |
Kidder, who played the role.
Her acting was a delightful surprise and the |
audience showed their appreciation of it by |
repeated curtain calls at the end of each ACT |
she is tall and willowy, with a please at albeit
penetrating voice, and The charming ease and |
abandon with which she played the part of
which recalled Ellen Terry's lightness
and grace in comedy roles. She had
to run the gamut of good many emo !
tons, from impotence at the annovances
Emperors resolve to have her friend De Nein-
perg strangled, but she was always natural |
and delightful In the expression OF her feel |
ings.
TO need lengthy repetition. 1t shows in a |
prologue how the washerwoman Catherine
Hulbscher saves Austrian officer De Nein-
perg, during the revolution from the wrath of |
the FIR, nch populace with the help of her
rescues hi.J again when Lefebvre has become
a Duke anu iIe Emperor suspects the Austrian
of being the Ell. rcss' lover.
The story also Slows how Napoleon tries to |
make Lefebvre divorce his vile, Nine. Sans
Gene. for her free and easy manners and how
Sans Gene herself wins his favor and makes |
him her friend.
Several of the supporting char acters were
well played, particularly Augustus Cook MS
Napoleon, Harold Russell Lefebvre and
Charles Plunkett as the dancing master.
Among those noted in the audience
were:
Mr.. and Mrs. J. Downey Harvey and party,
Mr.. and Mrs. Walter Deane and party Mrs
Hager, the Misses Hager, Edward d. Green
way, Joseph d. Grant, DR.. and Mrs Rosenstirn,
DR.. aud Mrs. Winslow Anderson and party the