The sun., 1898-02-20
Personal Paragraphs Concerning
Stage FayoriteS.
SOME PLAYS AND PLAYERS
stage Items of the SeasOD...GOssip of
the GrecnrOOnl.--What They
Are Doing.
Japan has no actresses.

"NI'h 'iAE NV oStiSS'S6
Ada Rchan has played 300 parts.
Yale's "Devi's Auction" will go to
Australia next season.
Tony Pastor has been in the vau de-
vile business 3s years.
Fay Templeton, who is now in Paris,
will short y appear at New York music
hall.
Plays to be produced by Mansfield
include est. Ives, !" the First Violin"
and "king Frederick William H."
Reginald DE Koven says the "Beggar
Student" is as good an example Of what
a comic opera should be as any can
mention.
Some years ago Sousa, the March
King, was playing the second violin in
the orchestra of Mrs. John Drew's Arch
Street Theatre, Philadelphia.
Charles Coghlan is Partisan by birth,
and his first appearance on the stage was
in French play. 1t was in one Of his
companies that Ellen Terry first achieved
prominence.
Maud Northam, who played Therese
in Modjeska's production of ''Macbeth'
in New York on Monday last, is the
daughter of II. J. Northam, the multi
millionaire Of the Pacific Coast.
Some Is years ago, when Alice Oates,
Lily Post, Fay Templeton and singers Of
their class were in the zenith of their
lame, the name Emeiie Melville eclipsed
them all. Miss Melville played the lead
ing female role in "a Happy Little
Home" this season.
Folk say that by ingenious argument
founded on fact Damrosch has secured
Mnle Norlca this year for $4OO a night
which is exactly half what was paid to
her last year Circumstances led Our
Widow into a reasonable view of the
situation. At the beginning of last sea.
son she quarreled with Jean de Reszke
and quiltel the company. That en-
tailed Il loss in income OF about $4,000,
an amount which was by no means made
up in her subsequent concert tour.
81 am getting tired" says Richard
Mansfield, "of appearing in the guise Of
men who have only unpleasant attri-
butes. People begin to think that ! am
that sort of man myself. Hereafter | am
going to play lovers that all the girls
will rave over Seriously, think public
taste shows a healthy incline toward the
stage characters that one would not be
ashamed to know in real life, men OF
kindly nature, brave and ovablc; men
who make love brilliantly, fight cheer
; fully and live in an atmosphere of roses
, and romance
Verdi has been chosen honorary
president Of the competition of Italian
bands, which will be held during July
!, at the National Exhibition at Turin
+ That sounds like rather trying work fol
an old gentleman, but he will have the
assistance OF Leoncavallo, Boito, Mas.
cagni, Puccini, Massenet, Saint Saens,
. Sollsogno, Ricordi and others when it
comes to deciding which is the best.
+ Italy will send one hundred bands tc
the competitiou. and Of these twenty.
: four will be military in character.
Mascagin is shortly to make Il tour OF
= Germany with the orchestra of La Scala.
which consists OF one hundred and
, twenty men.
: Wagner was 1t first condemned, GDu-
r mods Faust was hissed on the ope. .
ing night. Bizpt died, it was said, heart
W tlIt NlllCil VIC vi lCS
gave to his "Callnen.' In our own city
and generation Enonura Dusc was at
; first rejected, ihc critics snccle Lat Nine.
Melba on her debut At the Mct,0poiitan.
Mrscagul Wa, greeted with soon, yet
: his 'Cavalcria Ru~tirana" became one
OF the most successful works OF morUlrn
composition. Reginald De kovpn had
a hard fight. SoltS:'s "El Captain was
mucGic,. in Iuo more TpNiIcu til"u Mrs
James Brown Potter, yet she is now tile
chief actress in LDndon.-lIiIlary Bell in
New York Press.
Some aspiring dranatist, who seeks
for sudden lame through play in which
the emotions and ppssluns are served in
lingerie, should choose as theme for a
drama the social conditions in Washing
ton which are only new coming to light
through the numerous suicides oi Young
women who have occurred in the capi-
tai OF lote. There is material to spare
lying around loose in diplomatic society
down there, which have never been
served upon the stage, for the reason
that it is too shocking for even news
paper publication. But, now hat the
stage has established a new school Of
morals, there is no reason why this mod
crn altar of politics, on which women
and girls are sacrificed, should not re-
ceive attention from dramatists OF the
Potter school. Matinee Girl in Dramatic
Mirror.
Anent the production in New York of
'The Conqlcrors' and the "rrce of
Knowledge" Vance Thompson remarks:
"Twas under the late Roman Empire
that the drama died u natural death, not
because the Church condemned it, but
by II lust of sheer Obscenity and blood
shed which made true dramatic writing
impossible. The stage became something
too vile and horrible for description. De-
light in the imagined thing had sickcned
until men were made to die and women
to degrade themselves in the very thea
tres-the drama died under the obloquy
and ;nfamy of this awful realism. To-
day there is plainly dscernablc that dra-
matte tendency that passcs-now as OF
old o'd-from tie morose delight Of i'm
agining evil things to the brutal realism
of witnessing the evil act. At the En-
pirc Thcatre and at the Lyceum Theatre
| plays are exposed in which the chief
scene-tle close-s that outrage upon
womankind over which the mobs of
dying Rome howled frantically The
Romans saw the slight Christian girls
delivered over to tho savage, eXultant
barbarian. At the Empire Theatre the
play-goers indulge themselves III the |
complasance-tle morosc delight, as the
Church calls it-of imagining the infamy
The nal ed instinct is drapfd with social