The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1904-10-02
ACTORS IN NEW ROLES
BY Franklin FyIes

fuss about it. She asserts her higher
right as a well behaving wife TO be re-
spected. They are arrayed in their du-
cal robes and cOronets. 1t is in vain
that Fitch has dressed them thus pic
torially, and that he has written the
quarrel I'm vigorous language 1t Is
quite futile in Mrs. BlOodgood TO beg
the man to strike her so that she may
have ground for a divorce, and to
throw herself on the floor in an emo
tional parOxyem to await the solicited
blow She lost our sympathy at the
outset and can't win il back Ne don I
care much whether she comes out ON
top in the encounter or underneath. We
are rather disappointed when the fell
low calmly unclenches his fist. But
even if he did hit her. that Fitchian
stroke wouldn't save TIE play. The
heroine has gone wrong in a way that
won't let her come around right. Here
is a lesson for writer's Of plays.
There are good jokes enough in
George AIDES THE College fWidow" to
run a daily column in a newspaper for
a month, or TO keep dozen mOnolOgue
testers going in vaudeville a whole sea-
son; but neither their quantity nor
quality would make an evenings enter
tainment if they were not spoken by
tie right persons in the right circum-
stances. The widow is the fascinating
young survivor of many collegiate en-
gagements, but not of any matrimony.
She consents to serve the football team
by cajoling a mighty half-back TO re-
main and win a match for them. After
the victory he learns Of the trick she
has played, and is resentful, but SIZE
cOnvinces him that from starting as a
firt she has finished as a sweetheart.
That is all there is of a story.
But it is all alive with athletic stu
dents and pretty girls at an opening
of term, faculty reception, a foot
bah game and a celebration supper.
Besides the slightly young folks there
is bunch of eccentrics. a railway
millionaire is so glad of having es-
capped a professional career by eXpul-
sion long ago that ne makes munifieent
gifts to the college. A brawny tough
is brought from a foundry to take
special course in art SO as TO be en-
ployed as center-rush. A gawky zap
develops into a knowing sport before
his freshman year is two months old.
\ chicken breasted, white-liNered tu-
tor passes from denunciation of rude
footballing TO rapturous admiration. A
prize fighter trains the team and in
cidentally mates himself with the lu-
dicrous daughter OF a college boarding,
house keeper. a professional chaper-
one lets her girls mix in with the stu
dents and is popular with them on her
own account. An athletic maiden is
the widest roOteT at the match game.
And that event with what comes be-
fore it and follows after. are shown
with incessant waggery and commo-
ton.
IL, 60
miliar TO you? II. G. Barnaby. Don't
you associate him with your memories
OF the stage? Henry Clay Barnabee.
Now you recall him, don't you? in con-
nection with a company known as the
BostOnians and a comic opera called
Robin Hood" Anyway. a young man
OF 40, announcing himself as Henry
Clay Barnabee has just made debut
in vaudeville. l went TO see him, and
got there too early by an hour and n
half. Most Of the visitors timed their
arrival more happily. But l have
weakness for variety shows, once ia a
while, and was on hand when this one
began, instead of finding out when Bar
nabees turn would come and staying
away till then. The place was a con-
cert hall made out Of a one-story skat-
ing rink. the roof Orders of which were
barely twenty-five feet above the level
expanse Of floor. Two or three hun
bred persons were scattered Ionesomely
in this makeshift OF a theatre when
the curtain was raised.
viii you be bored by a short account
of what was done IN the half Of the
evening before Barnabee came on the
stage? Or viii you be interested, as l
to - 90 el,0 l.
given away up there where Broadway
OF negro and white trash quarter
called the Tougher Tenderloin2 First
or the bill were a pair of contortiOn-
ists--a long, slim fellow whose self
tortures wrung his face into grimaces
of pain. and a short. thick young wo-
man whose visage was so ugly by ma
ture that the throes of her distortions
couldn't make it worse. They were so
ciety gymnasts" l think we were glad
unanimously when they were displa ced
by two farcical sketches-glad, that is
10 say, until the woman of this couple,
u coarse creature IN the guise Of q
Swedish servant, displayed her humor
in habit of shifting, wiping her nose
or her hand and splitting in the face of
her mate. They were comedy artists. Z"
We suffered next from a still more
Terulsive team-not all of US, for many
Laughed and apDlauded. The bulky,
br5wny woman of this combination
was clean. however, and it was the man
who was nauseous. His waXen nose
was red and dubious as with some dis
ease. and his clothes counterfeited
dTeadfully the filthy rags of scratch
headed, soggy- footed tramp. The eli
max of this act was to ill his mouth
with full tumbler from a whisky bot
tie and, being chOked by the LIQUID,
eject it full into the face of the woman.
They were humorous acrobats." The
prettiness of the girl who came fourth
in the bill was beauty resplendent aft
e. the amazing ugliness, and her tune
ful singing OF southern folk songs was
melody enhancing after the vulgarity.
BY that time the concert hall was near
~ filed by people who had come from
beyond the slum neighborhood to see
Barnabee in vaudeville,
Good old Barnabee isn't in immediate
bad company. With him in THE OpeS
ra King" are Ruth PEBBLES and Camp
bell Donald. soubrette and comedian
from the wreckage of the BostOnians.
with voices cultured beyond what is
commonly heard among the nlirth-
makers of the variety shows. Barne-
bee, out Of comic opera costume, and
IN everyday clothes and snow-white
hair looks like a venerable clergyman.
As he comes forward you instinctively
feel that it is Sunday night. that the
hal has been rented for religious re-
ViVa purposes and thai the dignified
old gentleman is an evangelist about TO
make an eXhortatiOn. SO Barnabee's
appearance isn't calculated to persuade
the audience that he is, as the farcical
sketch declares him TO be, a visitor at
a dramatic exchange and gay Old
h .LLal. of A.n,nn1Inttiah 49, -.