The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1905-03-19
ODETTE TYLER IN Her OWN PLAY
BY FRANKLIN FYLEs.

dressed ike a Harry Lehr on Fifth
avenue. and from an armful of carna-
ions he gave one to each woman who
entered Inside the lobby was a youth
of the careless garb of Chimmie Fad
Den of the Bowery. impOrtunely ped
ollng peanuts from basket The
gifts of pCsies were Odette TyIer's toI-
ems OF welcome to those who had come
over to a theatre IN the Yorkville see
ton OF Gotham to see her in The
, Ked CarnatiOn," a drama of her own
making. The sale of peanuts was in
cldental to the ordinary business of
the house. This was a Monday night
without two-dOllar new play in all
the town: so we who yearn for stage
novelty to begin every week with gath
cred there to get all the satisfaction
we could for fifty cents.
Whoever has attended a presidential
convention within twenty years knows
or BIN, the button man. for he has
oeen on hand Witha carload of brass
buttons bearing the names and faces
OF all the probable candidates. Some
OF the stock goes to waste, because it
, IS stamped wrong. but much of Ii is
stamped right with aSpiTautS WhOse
partisdns buy the One-cent emblems at
twenty-five cents apiece. Last year he
ran no risk as to Roosevelt or Parker
not only, but was lucky. too. with Fair
| banks and Davis. and his profit is said
10 have been fifty thousand dollars i'm
the one summer. Now we viii bark
| back from politics TO drama. Norris
| y. Bimberg. the BIN of the buttons.
has bought four lOW-priCed plots in
the edges of New York City and built
cheap theatres on them These houses
are used usually for rOugh-and-ready
plays or heiter-skelter vaudeville, and
/ so the production Of Odette Tyler's
piece, with not only her fashiOna Bile
acquaintanceS present by the hun
dreds, but the entire critical fraternity
also, made such an occasion as no
| Bim-bUm theatre had ever known. No
doubt there would have been Odette
| Tyler buttons for durable souvenirs.
instead OF periShable flowers. if there
had been time to make them.
But Odette, who is as pretty now
as she was before she became Mrs. Nc
Lean as the wife of an actor under
his stage name. and Mrs Shepard. the
wife OF that same southern gentleman
under his real name, had not COM
Portable, but very distressing even
ing That was not caused by fail
ure of her drama through its dement's,
but by the conditions under which
success was impossible. The theatre
has stock company SUpe-stOck
company, to be NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. with
which she was bound to find her play
! in the soup" Her first intention had
! been to have it tried without any
ado, merely to find out whether il would
| be a good thing with which to make
tour with her husband next season,
and she didn't mean to act in il her
| self until Thursday afternoon when
/ he could get away from his work in
/ the BelaScO company for an expert
lnent with the hero to her heroine
But when it was found that Monday
/ night would bring out no other new
! piece, she yielded 10 mistaken advice
and decided to make her temperance
| on the stage i'm the fun glare of cruel
/ publicity. 1t is one thing for over
worked and undeTskilled stock actors
! to prepare each week for roles that
/ have become fixed and famlia riZed by
usage, but it is quite another thing to
get ready in Il hurry and Scurry to
| create" characters without presidents
/ or q masterful director to guide them!
/ Indeed, Mondays performances under
! the easier conditions are hardly more
than -dresS. reheaTSaIs.- with the play
| erS uncertain in language and confused
/ in movement The rise of the curtain
! on The Red Carnation' found no one
excepting Odette properly prepared,
and every one, not excepting Odette.
/ scared to face twO-dOllar people under
half-dollar difficulties.
! 1t was as ROvaliSt maiden in the
/ time of the French revolution that
/ OdettO TylOT stood forth. and as she
/ wasn't in a directOrie gown, but in the
doublet and hose of a boys disguise.
( she was sight 20 make her friends
/ applaud admirinSly. But at once d
=
! New York and funny in the always
| absurd uniforms of the tri-colOr patri-
/ OTIS from the bOUleVardS of Paris,
! marched in TO make prisoner of her.
/ and then those same friends laughed
/ merrily. Forrest and Booth used to
| muster very awkward squads on
Shakespearean battle fields, in the
! palmy days of the drama. but modern
! Stagecraft mas accustomed Broadway
to good martial lnimicry, and those
! comic YOrkville warriors broke up the
! show, which never pulled itself to-
! Sether again The prOmpter cOuldn [
! keep even the principals going, and
/ Odette had to help them along. In
] edition TO the assumed troubles of an
aristocratic girl deputized by her
| brother to save Marie AntOinette from
| the guillOtine, and whose duty broke
! her heart because she had to incl
dentally doom her republican lover to
that same chOppiHG block, she was dis
/ tracted by the necessity of whispering
| their lines to both the brother and the
| lover in all her dialogues with them,
! Therefore it wasn't easy to get the
! story of her woes. or even the mean
| ings of her separate scenes of anguish.
The beset actress was quite herself,
however, in a comedy passage so truly
Belascan that il seemed as though
! BelascO must have suggested il to her
| The heroine needed something in
| attract the attention Of her brother in
the street below. What could she get
hold of quickest? Her slipper, of
/ course. But it was her lover who
ricked it up, and when he brought il
! back to her the stocking, TOO. was OFF
/ the slipperless foot. l don't know how
| she had removed the stocking, but J
co know why. It gave her the chance
TO hop around, shy yet TOguish, with
the bare tootsie hidden under her skirt
! from her ardent wOOeT, yet visible IN
/ teasing glimpSeS to the rest of us.
| If Odette knew the habits of an east
side gallery she wasn't surprised by
the chorus of cnicps when her lover
/ kissed her fondIy, but the unac-
| customed parquet, seeing that the kiss
| was gracefully natural didn't under
stand the deTiSive demonstration VI
i alost The time for nil&rity came fOI
the lower part of the audience at the
climax of THE great third act" The
| queen was to escape from prison
Through an underground D2sSa Sc
| guided by the girls lover, and kee
OF powder had been placed in there by
her brother to blow the lover to
smithereens Odette was in an agony
of dread. There was a pause of sus-
| pense that should have been intense
The pause heightened into an awkward
| wait But the blow up didn't come
Odette's spasms took on an aspect OF
reality.
MY God. did you hear that?" CRIED
| the iailor-an old actor used to stage