The Saint Paul globe., 1900-04-30
At THE THEATERS.
METROPOLITAN.

The greatest and most important at
traction Of season remarkable for big
productions and brilliant engagements is
the London Lyceum company headed by
Henry Irving and Ellen Terry, which
opens an engagement of three nights at
the Metropolitan this evening at O'Clock
sharp. For the opening performance to-
night Mr.. Irving and Miss Terry will pre-
sent Sardou's "Robespierre," which is
said to be one OF the grandest produc-
tlons ever staged in this country or in
England. Tomorrow night a double bill
Will be presented, consisting OF Nance
Oldheld' and The Bells and Wednes-
day night, the closing performance, will
be devoted to ''The Merchant of Venice"
The advance sale of seats has been un-
usually large, although plenty of seats
are still to be had for every perform
ance of the engagement.
The curtain will rise promptly at s
o CLOCK for each performance, and the
management earnestly requests their pa
irons to come early, so that the audience
may be seated before the curtain goes IN:
little consideration and courtesy In this
respect will save much unnecessary an
noyance and contribute greatly to the
enjoyment of these. performances
The sale of seats opens today for the
engagement of Belle Archer in Hoyt's "a
Contented Woman at the Metropolitan
the latter part Of this week. This attrac-
ton will appear Thursday, Friday and
Saturday evenings, with popular price
matinee Saturday afternoon
j. j. Slater, a medium, gave a spiritu-
alistic seance at the Metropolitan last
evening.
GRAND.
1t may be truthfully said of "HeHo
Bill, which opened the week at the
Grand last night to a packed house. that
1t IS odd, very odd. It is styled a mu-
sical farce comedy, but it has plot, and
one that is so visible that it is almost
impossible to lose sight of it. and
stranger still, the members Of the COM
pany really try to keep it in view. with
the exception of one brief period in the
middle act, when speciaIties are intro
duced. A full column would hardly ba
space enough to tell of all the things that
develop about this plot. Suffice to say
that 1t has to do with twin brothers, who
have not seen each other for years
One follows the races and is known as
Hello Bill although his name is Will
liam Wilson. The other is a SpirituaIist
fake. whose name is Willis Wilson. VIII
lis and his wife stray into a. hotel where
William and his wife are living. The
wives get together, but the husbands do
not DO a double turn until the last min
ute of the last act. The two men are
astonlshingly alike, and, as neither men
nor their wives suspect the others Of be-
ing within thousand miles, the situa-
ton is remarkable, for whenever "IelIo
Bill or Willis puts in an appearance. he
1t either one, he is at once claimed ais
! husband by both women. OF course there
are one or two love affairs on tho side.
and these, like the main plot, are kent
well in view.
Hello Bill'' is a fairly good farce. al
though bit rough in spots, and is in
the hands of company that averages
gooo with some clever people. Frederick
L. Power has the rather difficult tas,, of
presenting both the characters OF ssHello
BIZ Wilson and Willis Wilson, and he
does 1t well. His changes were remark