The herald., 1898-01-23

being. 1t is good that laughter should
stop the flow of tears, and, better still, that
a tinge of sadness should point the way to
happiness.
lII.-The play must have as simple and
as general a moral as possible. and, having
occupied the imagination by means of its
, dramatic intricacies, must satisfy the con-
science by the flawless logic of its denoue-
ment.
Discussing the evils Of long runs in
one Of his articles in the London Sat
urday Review, George Bernard Shaw
gives utterance to the following bits of,
truth: Take the case of the great Ital-
ian actors who have visited us and
whose acting is Of an excellence appar-
emily quite beyond the reach of our best
English performers. We find them ex-
tremely chary of playing every night.
They have repertory containing plays
which count as resting places for them.
For example, Duse relieves 'Magda'
with 'Mirandolina,' just as our Shakes
pearean actors used to relieve Richard
III and 'Othello' with Charles Sur
face and Don Felix. But even with this
mitigation no actor can possibly play
leading parts Of the first order six nights
a week all the year round unless he un-
sderplays them or routipes them me-
chanically in the old stock manner. or
| faces a terrible risk Of disablement by
Nc 20 oil ntnI
or morphia with the usual penalties"
+ + +
J A dispatch from Berlin dated the 18th
inst, says that Herr Sudermann's relig-
ious play johannes" treating of the
life of John the Baptist, which Emperor
/ William allowed to be performed after
1t had been prohibited by the police, was
produced simultaneously at Berlin, at
Stuttgart and at Dresden. The play did
not prove a success, lacking the antici-
pated idealism and poetry and falling to
impress the critical audiences which
witnessed 1t.
An English correspondent reports that
the statement to the effect that taste for
the old-fashioned Christmas pantomime
is dying out is not borne out by the facts,
which are that within the metropolitan
boundaries of London alone no less than
twenty-elght pantomimes were pre-
pared for representation at as many
different theaters during the late festive
season.
Harry Corson Clarke has engaged a
strong company to support him in his
venture of starring in ''What Happened
to JONES'" which Is to be brought out at
the Columbia theater, San Francisco,
as soon as the damage done to the build
ing by the recent fire has been made
good. Affie Warner, Maud Allison,
John B. Allison, Clara Reinford and
Charles Charters are among those men
toned as members of the new COM |
pany.
Many people have wondered how it |
was that the Orpheum contrived to |
keep up a succession Of attraction COM |
prising among others many high SAL |
aried artists who can get constant en- |
ployment in the east without the neces- |
sity for coming to so distant point as |
Los Angeles. The secret is explained in |
the fact that Gustav Walter, the pro-
prietor has a circuit of houses COM |
prising San Francisco, Los Angeles and |
Sacramento. which enable him to make
contracts with performers for from one
to two or three weeks or even more, at |
the points named, and the engagement |
thus becomes profitable one to the |
players and enables the manager to give
an amount of variety and excellence |
that could not otherwise be secured Mr. |
Walter has just made arrangements by
which he now controls the Ninth Street
theater in Kansas City which will be
added to the circuit of houses above
mentioned. This will give him even
greater facilities for furnishing changes
of attractions at this point and will
consequently be to the benefit of the
patrons of the Orpheum here. The
Kansas City house is to be opened on
Feb with the Knaben Kapelle, Ser
vais Leroy and strong vaudeville COM
pany.
Charmion, the sensational trapeze per-
former, is in her fifth week at Roster &.
Balls In New York. The reason for this
wonderful popularity is not that the
lady is wonderful trapeze athlete but
because she begins her act clad in even
ing costume, and calmly undresses
while going through her performance.
New York pretends to be shocked, but
crowds the house, all the same. She
would find plenty of admirers in Los
Angeles.
Personal
Miss Anna DAILY, a young California
actress, now playing with Modjeska has
been praised by the eastern critics for
her Phoebe in "As You Like It." and
Margaret Curl in Mary Stuart"