The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1904-04-03
HOW KATE CLAYTON BECAME FAMOUS

New York. Anril !.

New York, April /.
ihT I'LL you younger readers permit
w me a more reminiscent letter
than usually write? All, yes. Il
Know that you who have lived a quar-
Ter or a century, or less get inatten-
I'VE as soon as a man who has lived
ndh 3 century. or more. begins to tell
ABOUT Things he saw when he was
young. But we have this week a re-
prouuctlon OF The Two Orphans" with
company which bravely, boldly,
Drazenly challenges comparison with
the one which gave the American in
PRODUCTION of that melodrama twenty
nine years ago. So what can an oldish
Fellow do but look backward?
My. goodness. but it doesn't seem so
long L said to a survivor OF the orig
maj cast, who was in the audience at
TINS revival. "since I saw you give q
performance which insured you an in
come for life. Mrs Stevenson I said
Tor hate Claxton is still the wife OF
CHARLES Stevenson, although she has of
late years declined to live with him
don't mean your first appearance at
the Union Square theatre as the blind
orphan, but that later one in a Brook
lyn care She looked at me inquiring-
~. ON the night that the Brooklyn
theatre burned I explained, 1.-THE first
editions Of the New York morning
newspapers contained accounts Of the
IRE with no intimation of the loss of
200 lives. When word was received irl
the offioes-not by phone. as there was
none-that few of the people In the
gallery had got out. all the reporters
available We're hustled across the river
not. by trolley car and bridge, as there
was neither-and I was one OF the
young Fellows who went over by ferry,
ran a mile UP the steep street and ar
rived breathing hard at the place OF
the disaster. Several of US found you
IN the back room of a saloon where
you had taken refuge. You still wore
the tattered gown of the beggar Lou
Use. and in her manner you were shiv-
erlng with fright. You gave such a
depletion Of terror as had never seen
before and have never seen since"
DO You mean to say / was acting?'
Mrs. Stevenson exclaimed
Yes" 1 insisted. land acting splen-
didly because unconsciously. You felt
every whit Of the emotions you ex-
pressed and spontaneously employed
every bit Of your ability as an emo
tiona4 actress in the unwitting achieve
Kate Claxton did not need to be told
why / spoke of this Involuntary per-
Jormance as having insured her an in
come for life. But the reader may like
TO know, too. BY a, chance she was the
only member Of the company at hand
when the eager reporters got there. By
another chance she was a fluent talker.
made eloquent by excitement Her
rapid narrative of her flight from her
dressing room through a cellar to the
street was sent to our morning iour-
nails in New York and thence tele-
graphed all over the land. Not until
afternoon was any other players talk
published. BY that time Kate CIaxton
had gained more publicity in the reaa-
ing matter of the press than 81 600 600
would have bought in the advertising
columns. After twenty-nine years she
is still making tours in THE Two Or
phans."
About tie revival Of this old play?
Well. one fact is made clear. The
longevity is not due to Kate CIaxton's
good advertising luck, although that
has helped; nor to the Impetus given
at the outset by cast OF suitably gift
ed actors. although the.> helped. too.
but TO Adolph DEnnery, the French
author. master craftsman in melo-
dramatic work. Two foster sisters are
abducted upon their arrival in Paris.
one by an aristocratic libertine, and
the other by a bestial beldame with a
lustful son. Not until the end of a
long play do they get together in hap
by safety. In the meantime their vir-
tues had had pitiful and peTlous en-
counters with vice. Their stories are
carried along separately in the action,
while a third concerning a proud fam
ily's secret gives a background for the
two others; yet there is never in all
the shifting Of episode scenes a min
ute Of confusion in plot or lapse in in
terest. The seven sections, If you viii
80 aT,rs- -tr,a
which are not forced, yet are very
strong-to make you wipe your eyes
for the maidens. clench your fists for
their enemies and clap your HAMS for
their friends.
DEnnery had a favorite trick of
tanning. binding and deforming the
sufferers in his fiction for the stage,
and he made a double play for sym
PATTY with il when he associated the |
sightless Louise and The crippled
Pierre. They won out with the new
Broadway audience on Monday night |
as they had in Union Square in 1874.
The press in dramatic ART has been con-
siderable in the intervening twenty
nine years and quarter. No on1svho \
writes nowadays other than crudely |
for the rabble dsres to let his charac- |
ters tell their motives and infections |
in soliloquies. but nearly all Of Den |
nery's last act is made up of such di- |
rect explanations to the auditnce. But /
in every other respect this work re- /
mains. in my judgment, the best model !
in its class.
4 play which authors Ike 70 cite as
proof that American managers don't /
know good matter when they read Il. /
Is this same one Of THE Two Or /
phans." Hart Jackson saw II acted in 4
Paris. bought the right for this conn
try on credit at $3.50, made a transla-
ton in which ne iudiciously. but clum-
silly. Topped OF an act, offered it in /
vain to all our producers of that day \
and at length. just before his option I
expired, persuaded 4. NJ. Palmer to /
take IL at an advance on the low pur-
chase price. The weather was blizzard /
cold and stormy during the first three
days OF its presentation here. and the /
audiences were small and rather chill /
". The feeling Of the critics seemed |
TO be that a Bowery melodrama had |
been misplaced in broadway. A less
virile, but calmer, piece made ready in
haste for rehearsal. But the eky soon /
cleared over the venture and the sun
of prosperity shone on Il. But Den
merry added only the $3.50 10 his wealth.
and Jackson got for his tinkering moth
ing else than employment by Palmer as
a secretary. In these times the royalty |
would amount TO $4,000 or more in a /
single season. Palmer made a fortune, !
TO lose in later ventures. Kate Claxton /
became a star actress and purchased 1
TaaIrear TrarefQF far which qha q