The San Francisco call., 1898-05-08
 SECOND-CLASS ADJUSTMENTS AND SECOND-CLASS AUDIENCES OF SAN FRANCISCO.


co o o o o o o O O
 In the good old days-not so very old, either-when we were the friends and patrons of the Frohmans, Hayman and the other theatrical spectators who now make a speciality of snubbing San Francisco, the summer closing in New York practically meant the opening of the season here. To be punctual, it was just about this time of year that we made the acquaintance of the last play of Pinero's, of Jones', of Wilde's, of Grundy's, of Augustin Daly Shakes peare's, and talked and wrote about the condition of the drama and it's actors with easy authority.
 Summer means nothing now. There Is no season for it to end, none for it to commence. It passes unnoticed in the continuous performance of the piece that does not matter by the actor who does not act. MT. Frawley closed his season last year with Bret Harte's "Sue,' a play that was almost great. Robert Mantell came last week with "A Secret Warrant" a conventional satin covered romance, cleanly written, entertaining, but in no sense import ant, unless for the fact that its hero inc introduced, Roselle Knott, an obscure and unspoiled young actress, who may do big things in the years to come.
 Between the going of Sue" and the coming of "A Secret Warrant" we have had an underplayed version of Under the Red Robe" The rest has been farce and variety, until farce has become anything but a laughing matter, and variety would better be called by some other name.
 With the exception of the dramatic critics, everybody in San Francisco who takes a serious interest in the theater and holds the drama in any analogy with literature, seems to have given up playgoing altogether. Cultivated per sons have taken to reading books, to slippers and the f1reside, to one an- other-to anything but the theater. There is no atmosphere, no intellectual excitement no artistical anxiety in the audience that attends an opening now adays. The first night is a faded tra- dition. The Mondays come and with them more or less change in the play bills, but there are no first nighters now except the managers and the crit ics.
 Of course the San Francisco theaters would not keep open if there was not some interest in farce and vaudeville, but this interest does not bespeak the representative class of San Francisco's pIaygoers, and it cannot be of normal profit to the managers while so many crfxr n a nd farce.
 For months and months every the ater in the city has been playing for the favor of one audience with one quality of show. Naturally, the cheaper theaters have done the bigger business While the Baldwin and the Columbia have been coQuetting with the patrons of the Orpheum and the TivoH, their own clienteles have been learning to stay at home. At present interest in the drama does not exist here, for the very good reason that there is nothing for it to exist on. You cannot measure it by the amount of favor extended the musical farcical pieces that have been given in the Baldwin and the Colum- bia during the past season-unless, h. deed, you count the empty seats to the credit of the town.
 My faith in the town is large and as buoyant as ever; it found justification in the record breaking crowds that at tended the Bostonians and Melba. I hoped that the success of the Melba season might readvertise our suscep- tibility to first class attractions at first class prices. In commenting on what I wrote on this subject, MT. Fiske, the editor of the Dramatic Mirror, pub fishes the statistics of the Melba sea- son and writes:
 This shows that San Franciscans hun ger for good musical and dramatic fare, of which they have had too little in the past It furnishes another rebuke to the men who recently abandoned monopoly