The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1906-09-16

The KreutZer s nata" Once they
were favorite and shapely actresses.
Now they weigh between 200 and not
an ounce less than 300: and the one who
kicks the beam at the top weight used
to kick hats off in comic opera. An old
anecdote quotes an unattractive cho-
rus girl as saying to the director who
declined TO hire her: 81 must live, you
know"
''Why?" he asked.
If art is to be good it must be cruel.
Kalich's art is needlessly loaded with
! obesity of the mother. mother-in-law
and ho1sekeeper I'm this play. These
| tatteneo actresses "have TO live" ORA
matte art cries out. Why"
##
EElls Jeffreys need hardly say
Thank you to her rich husband Her
bert Sheath. for The Dear Unfair Sex"
unless she takes his kindly intention
into account; and he has the excuse
for choosing a bad play that the lead
| ing role may have read as though it
contained suitable matter for her. The
character is that OF a woman who
| blends Shakespeare Shrew and Neil
| hac's Frou-Frou in an always petulant
and sometimes violent temper, and a
! silly, feather-brained vanity. And that
isn't all that the novice dramatist, In
glis Allen, an Englishman of literary
/
unlovely. Not content with marrying
her to a half of a man, who humors
her slightest within, for the sole reward
Of being accused of always fussing,"
| he let's her concoct a sham romance
| with a bachelor friend Of her husband
on the eve of his matrimony.
! You see at once what the plot Will
lead tO-the wife's surreptitious visit
/ to bachelors apartments-that dear
loo Of hn dror IN In
this case the woman trumps UP a fool
| sh farewell errand, although the man
/ feels not the slightest amatOry regard
/ for her, and sensibly sends for her hus-
! band to come and take her home. That
! is the second act. In the third, the hus-
band develops some PetruChiO author
/ ity, and sternly commands Katharine
! to go to bed. She meekly begins to
obey, and then the curtain cuts off
scene Of the whole play.
!
Yet there are merits in 1.-The Dear
| Unfair Sex One is that ii starts at
quarter TO 9 o'clock and the theatre is
shut at 1920. Others are a comprehen-
sion of stage technique. a touch of lit
erary elegance in the wording and the
rather unusual case of an author writ
ing about refined people with the con-
vincing simplicity OF one who knows
them. This is Ellis Jeffrey's third visit
to America with a play that hinders
her progress into prosperity. Still
| longer ago, twelve years, John Hare
/ brought her over for a small part in
THE Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith." but
/ illness prevented her debut. Between
/ that time and 1905, she made two wise
moves in London--the slow one of per-
| fecting herself in the art Of comedy
and the quick one of marrying Herbert
Stealth So she is among the cleverest
| condolences Of the day, although arti-
fetal and not sympathetic, and she is
the wife of a man with the money to
/ put her forward. She appeals strongly
to fashionable people, who also are Gull
! tured. Sheath, whose real name is
/ Shelton, and in England is regarded
as 1.-The handsomest actor" casts him
self for a small role in the present
company. Gerald Lawrence. another
noted London beauty, is interesting
here because his New York debut fol-
lows closely upon his marriage with
/ Fay Davis A third stranger worth
mentioning is Janet Sothern, wife of
Edward II. Sothern's brother Sam,
who was inconspicuous fin Edward
employ until ten years ago, when he
went to London and made some indie
/ pendent reputation. Mrs. Sam Sothern
is elegant, not beautiful, and acts
neatly.
The actor in 1.-The Dear Unfair
Sex" who gets some success out of it's
failure is George Giddens not much
known on our stage, but in London as
famous a comedian as they have now.
This is his first work here since he
came over with Charles Wyndham
twenty years ago. AS a brainless,
well-meaning, "right-ho" type of Lon
dOner. always i'm some stage of intoxi-
cation, he provides most OF the amuse-
ment.
A play worth no more than so cents
won't sell at 81. THE Judge and the
Jury" gives proof of that. 1t had been
derided by a Broadway houseful on its
opening night when, at the next days
matinee. 1 was one of a scant hundred
i'm the parquet. BY the time this &C
count is published, the piece will have
been withdrawn and the company dis
banded. Yet it was brought across the
continent from Los Angeles. where il
had been made and originally produced,
with trumpet blasts of triumph, only 10
be flouted and downed ingloriousy.
Woolly melOdramas Of the west some
times get fashions money in New York
but TO do it they must carve out a
plenty of prime meat underneath the
wool. This ones transcripts from life
among the miners ana cowboys OF New
Mexico presented nothing that hadn't
been overdone on the stage It's au-
thors evidently had made spot studies
for It, and along with IL came some fit
actors. especially a William Desmond
who looked and spoke like a girls ideal
Of an outdoor hero of open-air roman
ticism. But he was made to behave, on
the stage once trodden by Lester Wal
lack, in a way that couldn't please
maidens who demand chivalry I'm their
theatric idols His authors compelled
him to persist i'm a groundless jealousy
of the girl who loved him truly, and to
credit the calumny that she was right
down wicked with a tenderfoot sutton.
That was enough TO kill off any hero
who depended on feminine esteem for
life.
The heroine by Ida Conquest was a
second sufficient reason for the ridicule
of THE Judge and the Jury by intel
ligent people. Ida told them she was a
wild child OF the Rockies. born in a
mine camp and bred on a cattle ranch
but they wouldn't believe her, for Il
was plain that she was right from the
shady side of Broadway, pink and
f,,r Of nd hov ole