The Savannah morning news., 1904-10-30

| pantoniimes called THE House Th..
Jack Built odd Dame TIC. :.
Mother Goose" Little Boy Blue
Goody Two Shoes Red Gnome ans
White Warrior "Raoul ..;1 rI.u
schoolmaster.' Jack in the Resne
stalk, Dame Trot and Her Conoira,
Cat, Jack and Jill'' and several 9TH
ers. BUT as he never possessed the
snghtest business ability, he lost mon
Fox's fame as a clown, the trua
successor of the great "Joey'' c-i
maldi, came with his production oe
Humpty Dumpty" at the old olv,,,,i
PIC Theater in 1868. The piece vas
arranged by Tony Denier. who no.
only originated many of the incidents
ana designed the mechanical ami;
ances. but appropriated naterial FL FL
TIE Old Ravel pieces, which he knew
thoroughly through his long associa.
! uon with them. The original iii.
was Tom, Tom. the Piper's Sor ),
John Duff. the father-in-law of g.,
gustln Daily, was the manager of tba
tneater. he declared the title too long
and told Denier to choose = sbor+ass
ore. The opening chorus was aho,,+
Humpty Dumpty' sitting on a wall
ana so Humpty Dumpty'' was chosen
II made a big hit and ran 4S3 times
Al the end of its run Fox plt ~,
Hickory, Dickory. Dock" which m
troduced the Kiralfys to the American
pupllc. Fov subsequently produced
Humpty Dumpty Abroad IN 1874 a.
the old Globe Theater ana ~ ~ i01 Nat at
1875. put on 'Humpty DUMMY in ~
cry Cline" his last production. His
stage career ended in November os
that year, when he became insane. DIV
ing shortly after He appeared in OH
the great cities in "Humpty Dun1ptv !"
and made a phenomenal success
Whlie Fox played .Humpty Dumpty :;
DeIler also played the part in various
cities and became widely known as
the contemporary of Fox Clara Nor
rls acted Romance in his production
OF Humpty Dumpty" in Cleveland in
1863. 'e'''A III
Died Laughing at Fox's Antics.
Fox was wonderfully comic as
"Humpty Dumpty" It is a matter of
record that negro sitting in the gall
lery of the old Olympic Theater
laughed so heartily at Foxs antics
that he died of hysteria He was trulv
Grimaldi. Like the elder Joey" he
was purely a pantomime clown. rely-
ing mainly upon his face for his COM
edy, and ignoring acrobatism, thrilling
feats and the f1ip-haps of the saiwdust
arena. He had had no special train
ing In the pantominlic art and in his
Minimizing was forced to rely upon
his marvelcusly expressive face The
browning feature was the nose, which
seemed to have wandered there by
mistake and to have been fashioned
for an altogether different type Of
man. In woe-begone style. it i'm
pressed upon one a sense of utter iso-
lation and in itself spoke volumes Of
comic eloquence. All he had to do was
to poke his white face from the wings
and the audience would scream with
laughter. Little wonder that his cog
nomen of ''Humpty Dumpty" stuck to
him to the day of his death; and that
the clown of this piece should fasten
itself in the public mind as a SYNONYM
for pantomime.
Could the Ravels. the Zanfretti. the
Martinetti, the Buffers. the Foxes. the
Maffets and the Deniers in their hey-
day, from 1882 to 1875, have looked
forward and have seen the wonderfully
lavish spectacular productions now
called pantomimes, which have grown
from year to year from compare lively
insignificant productions UP to those
costing over 100000. they would have
stood aghast in wonderment. Several
seasons ago, Klaw & Erlanger brought
from the Drury Lane Theater in Lon
don and produced at the Broadway
Theater in New York THE Sleeping
Beauty and the Beast" Up to that
time it was the greatest spectacle that
had ever been seen in this country
and created a tremendous sensation
running for thirty consecutive weeks
at the Broadway Theater to receipts
of over half a million dollars, This
production revived interest in panto-
mime. or spectacle, in America.