The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-01-10

Dear Hal:
This has been a week of all sorts;
Louis James, Uncle Tom, - The Burg
lar" THE Fugitive" a senatorial me-
lee and Jacksons day-which, by the
way. doesn't seem to be very well
understood in Salt Lake. To my mind
Mr. James has never quite fulfilled the
promises he held out when he was act
ing the jester to Lawrence Barrett's
Lanciotto; in these days he gives the
impression that he needs a rigorous
trainer over him like Barrett, or even
like Frederick Warde. TO get out of him
all his full capabilities. Finesse and
James are as much strangers as James
and melancholy; his charm lies in his
Eugeness; his voice his legs, his chest,
his laugh, his stride, everything about
him is on the mastodonic order, so
when he essays a role like Spartacus
we forgive him all else in our delight at
his physique, his lungs and his legs.
Only two or three times in -Spartacus''
do his legs make one feel d little I'M
comfortable. That is when the legs of
the Roman army are in evidence, and
the contrast strikes one so dreadfullY,
army comes on with legs like those
that his cause is lost; but when the
other army appears ones hopes revive,
for even their underpinning is, if any
thing, even more unsteady. l would
have paid double to have seen the
oontending shock of those armies, and
l think it's downright mean of Mr..
James 10 have had that event take
place off the stage with no one but
the carpenters and property men as
beholderS. In the new play the need
of mentor for Mr.. James was still
more evident. 1t was a pity, too, for
the play has the making OF a rich en-
tertainment in it. The actor was not
nearly so easy in his comedy vein as
he was in the school for Scandal
with Marie Wainwright years ago. And
that reminds one that his new wife,
Allie Hendricks, is cute little actress,
TO whom Dame Nature has been IN
kind; the lines about her striking
beauty surely ought to be changed,
Mr.. James. j wonder if no memory of
the unfortunate Wainwright ever
crossed his mind as he stood upon the
stage where with her he once shared SO
many triumphant Dlauditsi All, Louis,
you Will never again De the same in
my eyes as OF yore, before you stood
Up in a court of justice and defended
yourself against the Wainwrights suit
your wife.
The Burglar" has not yet solved the
money problem for the new managers /
of the Grand. 1t is a play with all
the meat in one act, the other three
show plain evidences of stuffing. MI !
Edwards is excellent. 1 always like /
him best where he has a touch of the /
"heavies;" the child is cute, and Miss /
Nalleau is pretty. I wish I could say I
more for her. Given a scene where T
she has to swish across the stage, al /
low her ribbons to stream, her skirts I
to rustic, with nothing much else to 4
do. and she is a TestIul spectacle to /
the eye. Given a scene where she has I
20 raise her voice in a cry of distress, /
to wave her arms in excited gesticula-
ton, and the charm is gone.
Lured by the printing Of an Uncle
Toms Cabin" company, which an
nounced "a $40 COO production, so peO-
pie. 20 ponies. eight bulros and a pack
of Siberian and Cuban blOodhounds,
[ dropped into the theater this after
noon How the children went and
howled! 1t was really as bad a Topsy
and as sing-sopgy a little Eva as
ever beheld-and 1 have beheld the
Peter Jackson company-but how the
enjoyed it, The Cuban
man-eating bloodhound had TO be
on the stage by its collar, and
my blood ran cold as I thought of what
might have happened If the collar had
slipped off. The Siberian animal came
On and vaWned, as if it had been dis
turbed during a comfortable nap, and
the pursuit of Eliza was the last thing
en- earth it thought of attempting.
Little Eva father was played as
dude with a sash; how / longed for
the Cuban animal TO worry him as he
worried ne But as a mOney-maker,
the show is great: the youthful public
is satisfied, and where is the excuse
for a critics existence? MARGE.