The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1899-12-04
ETHICS OF THE THEATER.

The new vogue of the theater in this
city is one of the signs of a spreading
and strengthening Americanism which
must not be overlooked. For years
play actors got as cold a reception here
as they would have done in a Connecti-
1 cut town of century ago. Doubtless
many Thespians who came deserved it
/ but apart from that the better class of
the white community took the round
head view of the stage and would have
none of the ''unclean thing" In the
fifties Edwin Booth played his fare
well debut in a private hall TO a beg
carly array of empty benches, and as
late as 1890 Honolulu was regarded by
| theatrical companies as nothing better
than a one-night stand for artists pass
ing to and fro between Australia and
the Pacific States. One Daley. an I'M
qualified transformer of San Fran
cisco, brought down some people in
1894 TO stay over a steamer, and to his
establishment the white population
turned out and welcomed his cheap
melodramas with crowded and enthu-
siastic houses. Daley and his com
pany wore Baxter street clothes when
they landed and their stage wardrobes
were fearsome to the eye. 1t was
nothing to Daley to use a red flannel
gown as a Cardinals robe, but when
he left he was able to pay for costumes
or furred silk. He and his company
also blossomed out in the latest tailor
made street gear and when they final
ly reached San Francisco, dressed TO
the handle" as Daley put it. they
were the talk of the Rialto for a
month. Then came the deluge Good
actors argued that if there was money
in Honolulu for DALEY season there
must be plenty of it for them; and
since that time Honolulu has rarely
been without fair theatricals and now
and then has taken in the best of San
Francisco attractions.
The spirit in which the moral part
of the community has taken the inno-
walton augurs well for the theatrical fu-
ture as it does for the growing liberal !
ity and Americanism of these Islands. |
There is enough of the old Puritanical |
spirit left to insist on decency and we
have lately had a satisfactory recogni-
ton of it on the part of a manager who |
preferred TO cut an opera rather than |
TO keep in the vulgarity which would |
have spun the performance out. But |
on the whole the better half of Homo |
lulu society seems to have made up it's |
mind that a play is not wrong per sc !
with profit may be seen profitably in |
its dramatized form; and that songs |
which may be sung in the drawing
room suffer nothing from the vocaliza- |
ton OF professional artists. Then |
again. people are learning to select |
their plays as they do their books. |
There are bad books but that is no |
reason why we should taboo libraries;
so there are bad plays, but on that ac-
count no one need anathematiZe the
tteater. Into this reasonable and lib
eral spirit the people of Honolulu have
now emerged and it is a good sign. By
it and standing sturdily by
the moral principle which will not
the base and low anymore
II
always be able to command good the
atrical attractions and thus help bring /
Honolulu abreast of other cultivated
cities and make life a little more en-
joyable than it otherwise could be.
Also more American.