The San Francisco call., 1898-11-27


 day shortly after the Columbia
 Theater management had secured U control of the Baldwin and Califor-
 mia Melville Marx said. Now we've got theaters to burn" In few weeks the Columbia was richly dam aged by fire and water; in a few weeks more the California was singed and al- most the scene of a frightful panic; and now the Baldwin Is burnt to the last entrail. Three fires in year for one management in one town is a seri- ous hard-luck story. To be burned by the critics is bad enough, but the real thing is awful. It is discouraging. While the Fire Department poets of the press are applauding the burning of the Baldwin as vital protection of inflamma bIe humanity. Messrs. Gottlob and Marx are wondering when their turn will be over. They are frankly tired of fires and think that they have suffered more than their share for the good and excitement of the town.
 And William Gillette. what must he think? Secret Service" goes all over the English speaking world and is re- ceived with noble acclaim, only to come to San Francisco and be ignominiously buFned out. There have been shows al the Badiwn that would have justified any fire, but Secret Service" is not one - of them. It is a wonderful play, the best ever written in this country, and it Is played by a remarkably poised act or and a strong, well-ordered company. Heaven may not have approved of the the Baldwin that would have Justified far from God-like in its social policy, but surely heaven could have had no : vengeance to wreak on Secret SerY- ice" as modest a masterpiece as ever was played. MT. Gillette has reason to be. disappointed in Western hospitality. and MT. GotuOb and MT. Marx are just ly weary of the persistent warmth of their fate. But none of these gentle men is spending his hours in idle moan ing. Ever since the morning of the Baldwin fire the California has been the scene of lightning preparation. MT. Gillette, of course, wired to New York Immediately for duplicate scenery and costumes. but against their late coming the local scene maker. and costumer were put to rush work By all present tokens Secret Service" will be as good as ever when 1t is presented at the California to-morrow night Anyway, it is not a play whose sue cess depends on the scenery and, the effects. It employs a great deal of the paraphernalia of the common or garden variety of war play, but this is purely incidental. The thrill of Secret Ser | vice" is no more due to scenery than it . is due to an actress who has made an art of crying. It succeeds because its excitement Is human, mental. It is quite different from MT. Belasco's wob- bling Heart of Maryland" In that difference is the principal reason why it is Q great play. The comic relief which, though clever on it's own lines, ! is conventional and inclined now and i then. to interrupt the suspense and the 1 Illusion, is perhaps the only vulnerable part of the work. Certainly the rest is masterly viewed by. any standard that f may be set for a play of adventure and action And if MT. Gillette has used the skeleton of the old mode of melo- drama and in spite of the handicap | succeeded in writing a masterpiece so much the more honor to his crafts manship. We used to look to Augustus Thomas for the great American play. | but of late he seems to have staggered | :by the roadside. He has spoiled the memory of Tn Mizzoura" by recklessly working over the gem situations of that play into several later ones. He has pot-boiled and not even been popular at it. Gillette is an artist who, as yet, has never gone back. Too Much Johnson" Is the cleverest of the Ameri- canized farces and Secret Service" the finest of the American plays and these are his latest works. We used to look to Thomas to be the ancestor of the native drama, but Gillette is the man now. It is to be hoped that his next play will be an original one and not, as per rumor, an adaptation. No one in this country is to be mentioned with him as an adapt or. but, even so, his art is too precious 10 be. used up in polishing off another mans Invention. If it is, as with Syd- ney Grundy in England. a question of money, some philanthropic patriot ought to buy up William Gillette and save him for the glory of his country. The old days of patrons were not such bad days after all. Many man of to- day gould be fattening posterity with if he worked for one mas ter instead of million. Another thing to be hoped is that Charles Frohman,