The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1906-12-23
THEATRICAL WINS OF FASHION
BY FRANKLIN FYLEs.

III nF<INN
New York, Dec. 21.-Fashion is whim-
steal in theatrical as in other affairs.
That fact is illustrated here this week
dcubly and very differently. Who would
guess that our people of extreme mode
would take, all of sudden, to either
browning drama, or to concert hall
show of the female minstrel sort2 Yet
| a Broadway theatre was crowded one
afternoon at SIS per seat in the parquet
| to 81 in the top gallery, for "Colombe's
Birthday" and another was overfiowed
every afternoon and evening at the nor
NAL low prices raised to whatever the
sidewalk pedlars could lift them to.
A fashionable charity, a hospital for
women, accounted for the uncommon
audience at Colonies Birthday" The
motives of the players may have been
mixed. They may have mounted the
hobby of Browningism to ride into dis
tinction while 1t is circling the theat-
rical carousal. They may have been
true-blueN Browningites; and as they
came for this matinee from regular en-
ployment in two current dramas of
millionaireism and poverty, the re-
course to an ideal poem may have been
a solace for their artistic souls. Orrin
Johnson and Grace Elliston were their
clever leaders, but they could not i'm
part histrionic aspect or feeling to a
composition not meant by it's author to
be acted.
No point of charity, literary or art
| counted in the question why there were
long lines of carriages twice day for
the Coy Coyotes, the Bunco Butes, the
| Sirenic Sylphs-the company with an
other alliterative name at one of the
dozen New York theatres which makes
a weekly change, usually, among the
travelling female MINISTRIES. The party
booked here for the first week in De-
cember contained a man closely re-
sembling David WarfieIl, and a wo-
man as similar to Ethel Barrymore.
That is to say, he spoke with a Ger
man-JeWish accent like David's, and
her voice was cooingly like EthePs.
Then, too, some Of the chorus girls had
been hired for their ability to make up
for Maude Adams. Maxine Elliott,
Blanche Bates and Fay Templeton. AL
though these lay figures wore the cos
tunes of the actresses in favorite char
acterizations, they didn't attempt a
word of initiative speech. But I can
give no further explanation why this
show, rather than any other among
the half-hundred of it's kind, reached
out beyond the usual supporters of
smoke-and-beer burlesquery, and drew
in people whose visits were in the ma
ture of stunning. Yet so it wass, and
instead of going on its way at the end
Of one week, it is staying where it is
a month or more. A whim of fashion,
That's all.
If ii is a new sensation for the wo-
men in those audiences to see a lot Of
chair-warmerS' seated in a stage
semi-cfrcle, to rise and come forward
as a chorus or a ballet to back up
saucy soubrettes and impudent come
dams, it must be quite as new a SEN
sation for those chair-warming women
to face an audience of ladies and gen.
tlemen. AS to the emotions Of the
managers, their regret at the slump in
cigars and beer is oyerbalanced by
citation at the boom in the ticket traffic
What Of the show itself? 1t would be
disdained by its new audiences if they
came across it in legitimate theatre,
but as slummage it gives the keenest
enjoyment. Its rows of skin-tight young
women, its set of crude comedians, it's
clumsy transfers from the musical
farces, and its humor too dull of point
for the joke column of any newspaper,
make up show which can entertain its
unaccustomed beholders for no other
reason than that to attend it is a social
exploit.
One of the things that no burlesque
company will try to get along without
is vocal Quartette. You know them
. the high tenor who is fat and the low
bass who is lean, the bold baritone and
the shy falsetto-and the four of them
such awful cut-upsi A quartette now
in evidence, after being as funny as it
can with all manner of Glowing, seems
to feel that, if a serious drama needs
, lpnr11.C Ta1iaf fIoT7 NJ
serious relief So the foot and border
lights are turned out suddenly, there is
a black minute of silence, and then a
spotlight is thrown on a semblance of
an altar, in front of which stands the
quartette's tenor. But he isn't the fun
: ny fellow that he was. He has put on
a surplice, his face assumed an express
sion of holy calm, he holds an open
book in his hands, and he proceeds to
sing-very finely, too-the hymn of
1.-THE Palms"
The week before Christmas is the
: scantiest of the season for dramatic
novelty, excepting holy week, and, aft
err seeing "Colombe's Birthday" ]
, scanned the theatre list to find some
thing else that might be readable. "Mr
Montgomery Irving in The White
? Chief so That looked like a promise
of Sir Henry Irving descendant in a
drama of our Indians. I found, though
that the play was Arabian, and that
the white chiefs tribe was a Saharan
] band. Comparisons in art should ever
be made carefully. I am extremely
conscientious in this case. Mr.. Mont
gomery Irving is the strongest TRACE
dian on earth. The action had barely
) started when the hero and the villain
, had a head-on collision. They weighed
200 pounds apiece, but the hero was
hard. the villain was soft, and for a
5 moment the air seemed filed with hui
man pulp, thrown up and around by
Mr.. Montgomery Irving.
If you are an habitual dreamer, prob
r ably a frequent nightmare with you is
Z to be attacked by ferocious enemies
. men or moEsters-whom you pound
puncture, tear apart and utterly de-
stroy with the greatest ease, but who
3 won't stay dead, and are up and al
y YOU in forms more horrible than be-
fore 1t was like that with the White
Chief. He strewed the desert with thai
x,;11ofo r,oanv times hf1t again and AGAR