The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1903-09-12

Wava0anxa Company.
Ill theatrical entrepreneurs
have arrived at the parting
OF the ways. The silly sea-
son has passed and our man
ayers are gazing anXiously
into the future to discern. II
possible. what the new season
has In store for them. To-day we are,
so to speak. in the intermez2o-that In
teryal between summer frivolity and the
less bHthesorne amusements Of the winter
''the lake and when the habitual theater-
goer has not yet forsaken nature for her
counterfeit presentment.
The approaching season is rich In prom
ise and 1t Is born under a lucky star.
Prosperity Is abroad In the land. The
people can afford to pay for their amuse-
ments. despite the rapacity of landlords
and the hunger Of the coal trust. Nor
will the opportunity be lacking.
Charlie Frohman. the Rockefeller Of
the theatrical industry. returned from
Europe some weeks ago with his pockets
bulging with manuscripts. Time was
when Mr.. Frohman was content to place
before his patrons homemade provender,
but he Is running a delicatessen shop now
and his goods are all imported, whether
Made In Germany" bearing the hall
mark of London approval or labeled AR
ticle de Paris" Frohman Is bull in
the theatrical market, and just at present
he Is on top While In London he amused
himself by cornering the supply of plays,
and the London managers awoke one
morning to find that Pinero, Barrie, ct Id
omne genus. had been beguiled into sign
Ing contracts wherein they bound them
selves to write for no one but the willy
American for several years to come.
But the London managers are no fools.
Like Mr. Frohman, they realize that art
Is universal out. unlike Mr.. FrohmaE,
they realized also that while America may
be over-much given to money making. 1t
is also not wholly barren in the matter
Of expert and accomplished playwrights.
Consequently they sent an agent to this
side, and that agent will return shortly
with the best this country can produce In
the way Of dramatics. So London art,
or what passes for 1t. will flourish in New
York while American dramatists are reap
ing pounds, sh1llings and pence in the
foreign market. Wherefore the American
Dramatists' club faces an era Of renewed
jocundity.
The character Of the new seasons Of
ferings will differ but little from that OF
the year gone by. The naturalization of
mer months, Is unstilled. We are still
living under the reign Of the "show GIRL
and the "show girl" be it understood.
never reigns but she pours money into the
box office. She is more respectable than
her prototype, the chorus girl; and more
enticing In that she leaves more to the
Imagination. She seldom wears tights.
but queens It in the most expensive of
fabrics and most seductive of hosiery.
She is a creature of evolution, and as far
removed from the chorus girl Of q decade
ago as the scientist from an ape.
She Is selected for her ability to wear
and to wear well, sartorial masterpieces
from the foremost shops of the world. She
is walking fashion design, the living
model upon which our men-m illiners ex-
hibit the trophies Of their Skill One OF
her costumes costs enough to keep a
tom show on the road month, and she
sets the fashion as often as she follows it
Her salary-well, her salary is not opu-
lent but the management pays for hel
clothes and the jeunesse doree for hel
wines, SO what need has she of money
She receives "mash notes" by the score
but occasionally she Is really a well-bred
intelligently educated girl, who is actual
~ studying for the stage and whose goa
of ambition has not been achieved wher
she attains to place In the front row
Her day is at hand. Let her make tbs
most of it!
VI the seasons openings, by far the
most pretentious, both in New York anf
elsewhere, are musical comedies or comic
operas and most Of them have met witt
fiattering receptions. Two production.
which we, In Minneapolis, saw last sea
son, proved highly successful in New Yorl
later and one of them, THE Wizard O
o." Is there still, having run thru tn,
summer with its popularity undated.
This musical spectacle is good exam
pie, of a somewhat curious development
In recent productions Of the kind. +
provides an Illustration Of the fact tina
In current day socalled musical comedte
the appeal is to the eye rather than t
the ear. Time was when the music Dor