The San Francisco call., 1898-12-11

To see anything really remarkable in the theaters this last week one had to go over the bay and dare the sacred caIms Of Oakland, where on Thursday and Friday nights MT. Gillette present. ed Secret Service" Perhaps I should say that Charles Frohman presented the piece and that Mir Gillette merely owned up to the authorship and acted the principal part. You will remember that MT. Charles Frohman presents" was the stout top line of the posters and programmes. The author and the actor used to get all the proud type. but nowadays they have to share LID With the manager. It is common in the Eastern papers to see the managerial phiz crowding the lovely features of the leading lady for space among the Sunday illustrations This is the man. agerlal age with a vengeance Why only yesterday I received a carefully typewriter document from the Alca- gar announcing the new weeks bill as "A. NJ. Palmer's beautiful delineation Tof Southern life from the pen of Au- sustus Thomas"
 AS Whistler would say, Why drag in Thomas? MT. Daly in his collaborations with Shakespeare and Rostand and the farce men of France and Germany generally attends to it that the au- thors are given no unnecessary public lty l was reading some advice to MT. Daly this morning-possibly it was in Town Topics-which suggested that he call his latest Shakespearean produc- tion The Girl From Venice" But as I was saying, one had to adventure into Oakland to see anything really precious this last week. San Francisco was keyed up over Secret Service" and it mas taken good week to get over the reaction Of that plays departure. Even in the best of theatrical circumstances thls play and production would make others seem pallid by comparison. As Il happened Mir. Gillette was followed by one of the sickliest weeks in the records Of the town But apart from
 Secret Service" and the unnoveI and unremarkable quality of it's followers. the burning of the Baldwin was bound to have temporary effect on play N5oing. People became frankly con- 'scious of the tragic possibilities of a theater lire. Brave women and trust full men who formerly had given no thought to such dangers were sudden ly taken cautious. Hardly a night have l spent at the play since that disaster but have heard people discussing the location, exits and infiammability of this or that theater But hapnfIv such strenuous topics of conversation never last. After the newspaper habit the playgoing habit is the strongest of any. The people will have their shows. And after all the percentage that die by flame or panic in house of amuse- ment is as nothing compared to, say. the mortality from street railways and soda fountains. The dangers of the drama are few and far between-moraIly as well as physically They are hugely conspicuous when they do happen, that IS all. The theater is under the con- stant calcium of curiosity. Although We are at the tail end of the nineteenth century where art is art and, other things even up, all men reckoned equal. we have yet to put the craftsman of the theater on a par with normal hu- manity. He is at one time something below and something above it. He dis plays in public his personal being for a price, he is a performer, and some | thing of the olden-time audiences feel ings of patronage and superiority still obtain. On the other hand his person. ality, which belongs more or less to the public, is perpetually the subject of wonder and inquiry; and the modern manager and the modern press agent have traded on this to the last limit until a great many players have grown to regard it as a part of their legitimate h1ISiOpSS The average actor haS favv reserves. His person, charities, quar- rels and scandals alike are the property of the public. You or I might be twice as noble and receive not a tenth of the praise that he does; twice as imprudent