The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1905-04-16
Reviewing Old CbeatrleaI memories
BY FRANKLIN FYLES

stands on the threshold. with her lover
just outside, her grandfather just in
side, and an open trunk between them
When CuarleS isn't looking, she tun--
bles VIII into the trunk and gets the
old man 10 lug it into the room. So.
you see, Will crosses the sill unwilling
~ on his hands and knees. QuarleS car
ries him over unknowmgly and jimmy
I tricks them into a reconciliation. Who
says Zangwill can't invent a plot?
The case of Cecilia Lotus is sad and
singular. She is in the second half of
a fortnight in vaudeville at 81 600 ii
! week, so her agent says. and l wouldn't
| wonder If that assertion were true. She
Is what they call the top-liner at a
music hall which is crowded every aft
| ernoon and evening, Sundays not ex-
! cepted at prices aggregating as much
| as the average receipts Of Broadway
dramatic house, and therefore she
! equals in commercial value any Of the
/ twelve stars Just now shining legiti-
| nately in that thOrOughfare, Mansfield
alone excepted The canker al Cecelia's
heart consists of unrealiZed ambition.
During seven months of this season she
was the heroine of pretentiOuS drama.
| The Serio-Comic -GoVerness," by a
still more pretentious author, Israel
/ ZangwilL She thinks he was at fault.
/ he thinks she was, ] think both were,
! and anyway the venture made no gain
\
/ for she bore a portion of the expenses.
| That was not her first vain attempt TO
abandon the variety stage, to which she
had been born as the daughter Of Marie
| LOTUS, an English balladist, from
| Wnom she ran away to marry Justin
/ Huntly Mccarthy. an English writer.
| If you saw her in the Zangwill play
YOU know how spirited she was as the
serio-comic impersonator and how tame
/ she was as the gOverness, although her
J emotions in that f.h9I-ar
! posedly profound
| As sat admiring CeceIia's limitations
/ last evening. and took account of the
/ range of her wonderful mimicry, from
/ the purring of puss Ethel Barrymore
/ to the yowling of cat Sarah Bernhard
! with the comedy nicely of the one and
| the tragic fury of the other-I devised
/ a plan by which she may make the de-
! sired transformation of herself into
1 great dramatic artist 1t came 10 me al
! a moment when, announcing the next
/ lnpersOnation, she was a young woman
! in a white frOck and nothing more.
save that she was negatively charming
| with an intellectual face. a well-bred
/ air and an apologize manner. There
, WASH trace of individuality. She
/ was an utter nOnentity-a blank can
! vas which the painter hadn't yet
/ touched--a mass of clay waiting for the
! SculptOrs hand, but a minute later she
| looked and spoke like BernhardU slay-
/ ing ScarPio savagely in La TOsca."
! Cecilia has no power TO impress an
! audience when she isn't pretending to
! be some actress with a strong person
! ahty- Now, here is the winning trick
Z FOR her. Have some good jObbing dra-
| maust, like Fitch or Thomas write 4
/ piece with a scene each for Maude Ad-
( ans, Julia MarlOWe, Mrs FiSke and
1 Mrs. Carter-the best-selling four ac-
! tresses in America-then have these Ia
/ dies act those passages with her for
! the only auditor, and finally bring out
| composite imitation as an original
| performance of role which for di-
] Versihed grace and force. would be the
greatest stage achievement of the age
| James J. Jeffries. in @'Davy Crockett
at quarter Of a dollar for the best
seat in the theatre. If you buy it at a
J bargain matinee. and Richard Mans
! field in The MisanthrOpe" at two dol
/ lars, or as much more as you let a
| ticket SpeculdtOr get from you, are the
/ extreme quotations in the drama tic
/ market. The performance Of a Moliere
/ comedy with our American irving as
/ the actOr-directOr is surely a thea tricaI
| event and so it (nOt?) the appearance
| of OJsr champion pugilist in the play
| and part with which Frank Mayo
| famed and enriched himself. ! find that
/ L am less panied by Jeffries' attempt
! to knock Mayo out of my admiring
! memory as the romantic backwoods-
llAsAii AOi AtG Cdll L 10 ll-lndl DN MS
| and his company's smuggling Of the
! Mayo drama-fOr they maui and pound
! 1t past recognition the stage mas
| terpiece of my bOyhOod's esteem. 1t
| seems impossible that this "Davy
| Crockett" with its crudity. cIumsinesS.
/ and especially its childish traVesty of
! 'LoChinvar," could have excited intel
| ligent people to anything but ridicule
! as lately as thirty years ago. WinsOme
! indeed the acting of Frank Mayo must
! have been to triumph over James w.
! MurdOck's utterly craftless writing
! The two Jimjammers, Jeffries and
/ COrbett, are pitted against each other
| with us this week as actors. The deci-
| sion must be given to the former cham
! pion on points. Corbett is a cookbook
| ing fellow. with a passable though pal
J pable imitation of gentlemanlinesS and
/ a tOlerable proficiency in plain acting,
/ and the play of ''PaIsV has been pretty
! we'll made to his order, with fisticUf-
4 fer for a hero. He is to go into severe
| training next summer, to take up the
| role. of the prizefighter in George Ber-
nard Shaw's "Cashel ByrOn's Profess
! SION next autumn The hypercritical
| Shaw says the realism of the portrayal
! fascinates his fancy; and then. you
| know. there is the charming fact of
! real royalties TO consider
Jim Jeffries' Davy Crockett resem-
| bles Frank MayO's closely in the COON
| skin cap and the deerskin boots. but in
| nothing else 'twiXt head and heels. jim
! Davy's fighting face ought to alright
| the dainty Eleanor more than the raw
! ening wolves do, and to be gripped in
| his brawny arms across his bulky chest
might well make her long to escape
| back TO the danger from which he car
/ ries her, so fierce and grim is his SEN
! timent If they were bound to put the
champion heavyweight into the role of