The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1897-02-09
THEATER HAT IS GONE.
Of $50 Women in the Parquet
Last Evening
Not More Than Twenty Kept
Their Hats On.
An Up = to Date Looking Audience
Heard and Enjoyed Frank Dan
iels @Wizard of the Nile"

The theater hat reform has reached To-
peka in full force. Scarcely a hat was
visible in the great audience that filled
the Grand Opera House last night Many
ladies of fashion came without their bon
nets and scores of others took theirs off
as soon as the performance began An
audience in a Chicago theater, where the
ordinance is now in force could scarcely
have been more hatless than the one at
the Grand. Very few women kept their
headgear on, and they will doubtless re-
move it next time, having learned that it
is now the mode There were fully $50
women in the parquette last night and
not more than twenty kept their hats on
and these were hats that were inconspic-
uouS as to size.
Comic opera with the curtain up and
comic opera with the curtain down are
horses of entirely different colors.'
At least this is what Frank Daniels
said last night. and Frank Daniels has
And this would be the conclusion formed
upon a person who visited the stage of the
THE Wizard of the Nile"
To commence with the comedian him.
self, the wandering wizard has ceased his
professional tour long enough to throw
himself in a chair in his dressing room,
wreaths of smoke they curled upward
to match the drab and dreary ceiling of
the Duchess scampered at will over his
Egyptian clothes. poked her tiny pink nose
OF ms ears, and even seated herself
amidst the pompadour growth of his
from her magical master, not even an
admonition to come down from there
But whether seated in his dressing
room enjoying a cigar, before the foot
lights amusing the public, or on the
plug hat. Frank Daniels. the comedian,
is the same He is just as funny, yes,
that is the word, just as funny looking off
composed the audience at the Grand last
night know how funny that is.
goes down." he said he blew out
wreath of smoke and removed the cigar
from the corner of his mouth. Now that
stage out there doesn't look exactly like
Egypt, does it2''
Behind the back curtain which formed
the endless recesses of Ptolemy's private
pyramid in the last act, was piled all
manner of paraphernalia in a very mod
ern and altogether American way. Cleo
Patra's barge, in which Kbosh sailed
feet or more reclined in sections outside
wild-eyed crockodiie. which had SO ef-
fectuaily forced the wizard into the top
of the crocodile lay there. for it was an
animal without tail or feet and propelled
itself with roller skates instead.
A few feet from the wrecked barge and
the powerless crocodile. the royal wealth
er bureau and the Chop-Chop. the chief
executioner. sat on the headsman's blocks
and converSed together. 1t was not in
Egyptian that they conversed. or even in
the language of Kansas City, but their
talk was purely of a local nature, as was
evinced by therroyal weather bureau re-
marking to his friend:
old town that a fellow can get a glass of
beer?" This is what actors always say
when they come to Topeka. 1t becomes
quite chestnutty to Topeka reporters.
Chop-Chop'S answer was lost in the
roar of the stage manager who at that
curtain and asked for 1.-The shellS.'' These
shells. 1t may be well to explain, were not
sea shells or cartridge shells, but the
mummy receptacles of paper which the
wizard invited to be seated in the last
act.
Over in one corner the mistress of the
wardrobe sat on one of the rruks with q
shawl thrown over her shoulders and a
doleful expression on her face 1t was
her duty to sit among the trunks and
Superintend all changes of costumes
among the chorus, and afterward pack
the trunks ready for the train. AS this
meant a full hours work after the cur
tain was rung down for the last time the
doleful expression may not be altogether
wondered at.
Get me a long brace somebody" yell
ed voice from behind one of the pyra-
midical pillars. and as the form followed
the voice into the open space of the
stage, 10. 1t was the form of the Egypt
ian king. For kings oftimeS forget their
state behind the scenes in comic opera
and lend aid in a rush as well as any
stage hand. And as he forced the pillar
to stand upright by means of the brace,
PtOlemyS kingly garments tapped around
his royal limbs stirred by the breeze from
the back door of the stage where por-
ton of the scenery was already being
loaded.
Downstairs in the subterranean vault
of the Grand, the chorus girls cracked
jokes and smoked cigarettes, until the
stage managers bell called them up the