The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1903-05-24
She Is in Evidence in Wash
ington as Elsewhere and
Can Always Be Found at
the Stage Door After the
Performance Pa tient1 y
Waiting for a Glimpse Of
Her Idol as He Appears on
the Street. 5. :. :. :.

II HE matinee performances at the
leading local theaters are per-
haps attended with more varied,
interesting, and genuinely amusing
scenes than can be readily realized by
the merely casual onlooker.
The performance itself differs from
that OF the evening in many, if slight.
respects. 1t is an admitted fact that the
matinee presentation of a play is often
inferior to the evening rendition of it,
that there are often omissions in seen
cry and music, that electrical effects
cannot generally be produced so success
fully, and that the actors themselves do
not always make the same effort to win
their audience.
Yet the difference in the rendition of a
play is never so great as the difference
in the character of the audiences of
these two performances. The masculine
contingent, always as large, or larger,
than the feminine at an evening per-
matinee Men as a rule are not given
over 10 the matinee habit for various rea
sons, the main one perhaps being that
the matinee takes place during the busy
hours of the day, and the possibility of
the theaters becoming overrun with men
at this performance is therefore most re-
mote.
Those men who do attend are generally
saunterers, who incidentally drop in"
for an act men unemployed, who think
they do not care 10 devote an entire even
ing 10 that particular play. yet for curl
osity, or interest in some player, or to
pass the hour. they venture in for a
scene, and if the play pleases they re
main for the finale.
The Women's Performance.
Yet for all the lack of men at this
performance, there is no dearth OF wo-
men. The matinee is the women's ger
Torrance. Here collects a hetercgene-
Gus mass-women of nearly all the types
and descriptions that the city a1orls
from the rich and ultra-fashionable. 20
the working girl who goes to the double
expense of taking the afternoon from
her employment and of buying her
ticket for the performance. and from
the sedate. placid middle-age to the
garrulous and gay. Young and old
alike appear en- masse and there are
nearly as many types as there are Gu
pons torn off at the gate.
Those genius endowed individuals
whose link bottles froth with the mirth
70 nd
tirize the matinee girls, yet never de-
parting from the traditional picture.
namely. that of an deliberately dressed
young woman with fluffy hair, high heel
shoes and generally extreme effects. Sh :
IS extravagant and exaggerated. admir-
ing everything about the stage includ-
ing the property man and nourishing
hidden convictions tho though the way
is yet unmarked, she herself will some
day be luminary in the constellation
of theatrical lights.
The Matinee Idol"
Whether the play is one or thrills and
climaxes, of problems and perplexities,
of classic beauty, or spectacular opu-
lence, 10 this matinee girl there is one
certain end urvarying quantity-the
matinee idol He is there. whatever
his role-tall. elegant, Byronesque. sill
ve:-toned. and the matinee girls naive