The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-12-09

1 The practical value of unusuality on l the stage is illustrated in "Neptune's | Daughter" The Hippodrome was sea- ! son before lasts wonder of the show
 world. aside from being the biggest 1 theatre on earth. by reason of its spa
 cious pool of real water. A war drama
 had a battle in which a troop of cav l airy dashed into a river. and another | followed in pursuit, the horses plung- 1 ing down a bank and clamboring out at the opposite side. The house could 1 hold barely 5000 persons, and for months 1t did so weekday evenings, i with half as many in the afternoons. l The sinking of the stage floor into the ! tank was a part of the entertainment. The second seasons play was oriental, and not only the horses of an eloping bridal party and its prisoners took the water route, but several elephants slid down a steel. incline to make big splashes. But curosity waned, and at the end of the second year the ex-
 penses had equalled the receipts.
 This season brought new managers
 to the Hippodrome. No one knew
 what they based their hope on. and the guesses were vague. 'Neptunes
 Daughter" gives the answer. The ac- tion begins at fishing village on the
 seacoast of Brittany; in point of fact,
 alongside the Hippodrome's tank. A capricious maiden refused to marry her sailor because she thought he had
 sweethearts in other ports. He ap-
 pealed to the powers of the sea to aid
 him in his suit. and the Queen of the
 Mermaids responded astonishingfy. She came up through the real, wet water.
 There was no illusion. Her hair and
 robe was dripping. After her some or-
 dinary yet equally puzzling mermaids arose. All stopped when half out of
 water, however. leaving their suppos- ediy ushy portions undisclosed, along
 with the secret of the strange achieve ment. The Queen promised to help the lover If he would go down below with
 her. Thereupon the mermaids sank out of sight as unexplainedly as they
 had arisen, and the fellow dived after them. Then the 1ovelorn maiden prayed to Neptune. and the old sea god came up with water dropping from his whis-
 kers, and accompanied by surely wet attendants, to take her down to his submarine realm; and the excursion party sank out of sight as inxepltcably as the maiden and the mermaids.
 How Is that -done?" Thousands of spectators asked the question, and oth- CT thousands couldn't answer 1t. The plain, sure thing was that the flnan- claI problem of the Hippodrome was solved for the season. Whatever sets people talking is the desirable thing in the show business, from the Bar mum point of view, and next day New York began to discuss the mystery of Neptune and the Queen of the Mer- maids.
 The fact is that each appearing and disappearing performer is first placed in an enclosure like @ diving bell, into which air Is forced to keep out the water. At the right time, he or she slips out, rises to the surface and poses, partially submerged, on the top of the hidden structure, into which he
 Aw.N- ment. The device was invented by an engineer employed in one of the tun- nels that are being dug under the Hud- son river He took the idea from the waived compartments in which the ex-
 cavators work, and there's money in
 1t. .H>4 sp,.I-." ilF .S.
 At the main entrance to the Hippo drome n dwarf elephant passed pro- grams to the incoming people. With me was a Wall street man who owned stock in the Hippodrome company, here the water is gauge, the acquatic financiers who had taken flyer In the show business. but had received no dividends from the million-dollar en- terprise.
 II guess he's handing me another lemon," said the shareholder, as he took the program from the elephant.
 But when he had seen the new mar vel of the tank, he turned to me and
 
 peach"
 The remainder of "Neptune's Daugh- ter" is & ballet at the bottom of the sea, with dancers enough to fit out a dozen ordinary extravaganzas, along with crabs, Holsters and other water creatures enough to stock an aquarium, besides vast quantities of shining shells to give resplendence to spectacle which aims recollections of "The Black Crook" and The Naiad Queen" But here the water Is guaze, the acquatic creatures arc dry. and you view 1t complacently after your eyes have buIged out at Neptune and the mer- maids in their visit to the surface Of the sea.
 The new night at the Hippodrome begins with Pioneer Days" a Buffalo Bill's Wild West" compressed and ex- pedited within an hour. The we'll 1 nigh quarter-acre of stage Is at first | a frontier settlement with cowboys dashing in and out on their bronchos, | an attempt to lynch some horse thieves | and q hold-up of a stagecoach. Then | the setting is shifted to a pine forest | in the Rockies. where genuine Indians give war dances, and are defeated In | a fight with United States troops. An hour of circus is between Pioneer | Days" and 'GIeptune's Daughter" No | wonder the stockholder was glad to | think the elephant had handed him | a peach instead of a lemon.
 Peach sweet or lemon sour, dramat- ists have to take whatever the public | hands to them in return for their | work. James MacArthur is a New | York literary expert, Max Pemberton | is of the same repute in London, and | they wrote "The Masque of | the White Rose" quarter historic and | three quarters imaginary romance of | the fifteenth Louis's time in France. | Iouis's Mada du Barry was in 1t. not | as the siren whom Mrs. Carter made scarlet of hair and heart, but as a | waned royal favorite plotting and | scheming to keep her place by the kings side.
 Macarthur and Pemberton created a Gabrielle de Vernet, a Huguenot girl, | to be a bold slash-and-thrust hero of their play. as well as an irresistibly lovely heroine Gabrielle got herself hated by Du Barry and subject to in- carccration in the Bastile; she fell in love with Paul de Guyon, the soldier of fortune sent to arrest her, and who was falsely accused of her fathers death; and now what do you think her authors would be likeliest to do with her? They put her into the togs of a cavalier, send her to court to bullyrag | Du Barry. pit her in sword fight with Paul. make her a tough swashbuckler but a tender lady-love, and thus pro- vide such d character as flashing come diennes like to assume.
 Yet The Masque of the Rose" went from one to anothcr of the English suitable actresses. all thinking well of it. and some of them seeming To be