The San Francisco call., 1898-11-15
''SUzETTfV IS
 RICH WITH
 FUN AND TUNE Performance Needs Better Di e ,.ion.
CRANE PLAY AT THE ALCAZAR
BALDWIN AND COLUMBIA OF
 FER THE SAME BILLS.
Many New Turns at the Orpheum Melodrama at the Comedy, California and Mo-
 rosco's.

 Tivoli company will be giving a better performance of Oscar Wells "Suzette than was given last night. This IS not to say that some hits, individual ana ensemble, were not made last night, nor that the charm of the piece was ever completely disguised, but the per formance was not at all representative of the Tivoli company, which with US present personnel is one of the clever est comic opera organizations in Amer ica There were hitches galore last night: mangled lines, long stage waits and cues that never came; and the stage management was loose ana scrambling One didn't need to see George Lask out in front sitting with the laity to know that he had been away to gay New York and had had no hand in the staging. MT. Lask mas been a good and faithful master at the Tiyol. and no doubt he needed va cation as much as the TivoH needed him to go East and look up the seasons novelties: but after what he and l and a. thousand other good persons saw last night I hope that he will take off ms coat early this morning ana call the company to discipline, because Su- zette" is worth the best that can De given it.
 "Suzette" Is a comic opera of the good old type, with book full or trust ful fun. a heroine that wears male clothing and music that is good enough to he taken seriously, and is yet so easy and amiabIe that it fits any mood you may bring to bear on. it. 'Suzette' was. I understand. sung here by the Bostonians some nine or ten years ago.
 My nurse didn't take me to hear It then. so last nights show was entirely new to me. Any comic opera ten years of age that can be entirely new to you and pleasing and full of fun and color and tinkling with the tonic of spon- taneous melody is worth praising. You would even praise new piece that or fered the same qualities. Suzette was to me a lovely bottle that never before had been uncorked. It was full Of fzz and bouquet and elation and tran ouillity-although as hinted before the cork might have been removed with more elegance and certainty.
 I shall not attempt to revise the "ar- e,1rnent." which you will find printed in your programme and boiled down in last Sundays Call. The young womans change of raiment is accounted for quite satisfactorily; 1t Is really a relief to know that she did not do it of her own accord. And you can't help but applaud the ingenious way in which she works the old tricks so as to get the facetions marquis into her cast-off gown. And when finally she sells him his own trousers the revenge Is comic and complete.
 So far as the book goes the first act is a bit scrappy. In it are any number of songs and very little action to &C., count for them. But the other two are more in unity, the music pointing the situation with fine effect.
 If MT. Well had not written other operatic work and some of the best of our American songs the score of "Su- zette" alone would stamp him musi- clan of culture and individual expres- sion. It is clean, 1.-the and symmetri- cal. polished in every detail, and never banal. and yet so simple and free in melody and treatment that a child might listen and enjoy. l think could have had a good time with "Su- zette'' ten years ago. However, as we didn't meet in childhood's happy hour l am Qe0leQ the pllNAC6e OA NOii'hSN-A AA-o the Tivou and the Bostonian produc- lions. But the Tivoli will hold its own in a night or two I am sure.
 It was the movement and the spoken text that went awry last night more than the singing. Miss Lichter was one who both acted and sang with comfort. MT. Pruette was almost another. She was Suzette and he the Marquis The rest were not cer- tain enough for Tuesday morning com- nIiments. ASHTON STEVENS.