The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1903-11-01

a Midsummer Nights Dream" in all
the time since Shakespeare save IL
with no scenery at all tin the present
splendors Of pictorial art on the stage.
He plays Bottom the Weaver. and the
comic humor of his performance IS
easily sufficient to save him from DE
ing overwhelmed and Obliterated by
the surrounding gOrgeousness- His per-
sonaNty is as strong, in different
way as Irving's. Perhaps Klaw &
Erlanger. after viewing the ornate
beauties Of their New Amsterdam the
atre, felt that something amazingly
spectacular must be done on its stage
at first, else the early audiences might
regard the house as the attraction
rather than its dramatic contents.
There are those who, bracinS back
against all innovatory progress, com
plain against the elaborate mounting
of a Shakespearean play as detrimental
because il overlays the text with dis
tracing sights. but 1 think they are
a mistaken minority Frank Lee Short
is. or was, one of them. He hired
theatre, last winter, and revived "Ro-
meO and Juliet in faithful Imitation
OF the original EliZabethan manner, eN-
cept that the women were not acted
by boys. Few paid any heed TO the
exhibition. Where We're those Shake
spearean devotees who had carped at
/ modern mountings and longed for the
old time simplicity? They let Mr..
Short lose every dollar that he put into
the experiment and now he is run
ming a dime vaudeville hall with six
( hourly performances a day.
Shrewd as wen as prodigal has been
the expenditure of capital in this SUI
rerfine OrnamentatiOn of "a Midsum-
mer Nights Dream" 1t has all the
! sensUOusness of a feminine beauty
show. No American extravaganza has
been more alluring. with troops Of
singing and dancing young women.
! They are particularly lovely in the
fantastic guises of fairies led by Puck,
/ Titania and Oberon. No English
I Christmas pantOmime has been more
/ replete with tricks of visual astonish-
/ ment. The ass head which is con-
jured onto Bottoms shoulders winks
smiles, wags its ears and Is facially
almost as funny as GOOdwin's own
/ visage before and after it is masked.
/ These things are meant, no doubt, to
/ pOpularize the production and make it
I remunerative, but the spectator is kept
J from carping at them, no matter how
: aesthetically fastidious he may be. by
the good taste Of the display, by their
/ sUbservience TO a true Shakespearean
purpose. and especially by the Mendels-
sOhn music, adapted and at some points
4 extended by Victor Herbert. Like a
certain nOsUum, advertised as trebly
satisfying because its merits are three
in one" this Shakespeare comedy is
here made to blend three qualities
good literature, dramatic art and car
nal showiness.
What strikes New Workers first and
hardest in KyrIe Bellows appearance
in "Rafiles, the Amateur Craftsman
is that he wears trousers. That is
what he hasn't done or, the stage before
in many years. so thoroughly has he
I been identified with the cloak and
sword drama that, when he has walked
Broadway in everyday clothes, and his
white hair Unwigged, the girls who dOte
on his picturesque rOmanticism haven't
recognized him. No doubt he is glad
of it, being no COXcOmb. Another thing
than his change of aspect in this new
play is his shift from bold virtue to sly
crime We had him last in "A Cen
tleman of France" as foe and pun
lsher of lawless Tuffians- He met -four
Of them as they came at him UP a stair
way, thrust his sword into every one
and sent them tumbling headlong down
To see this champion Of the good &c
over to the bad and fight with his wit.