Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-12-15
FAVORITE THEME

| Just why do so many Of these vaudeville
sketches hinge upon the male individual
| of the sketch coming home to his wife,
from the club. I'm state either OF sodden
| or hilarious rumiferousness?
An answer to this little one, IL any there
can be, would be enormously appreciated
| by tens of thousands of sane and normal
persons who attend vaudeville shows.
It's usually pulled OF something like
| this:
| The rising curtain reveals tantrumish
wife-she says she is a wife. and she sure
ought to know-rampaging around most
ornate drawing room. waiting for her man
to come home. She is perfectly certain
| that he is going to come home very drunk.
| She says SO about four dozen times so as
| to make 1t stick with the audience Her
husband is a hopeless souse. She gets that
| In. too. all alone there by herself. when her
husband isn't present. and therefore has
| no chance to defend or square himself with
| the audience.
She rears and plunges around in her pull
back skirt, telling the audience about the
| things she Is going to do to the soused
one when he gets home. In the middle OF
her gyrating however, She suddenly OBJ
serves that there's piano in the drawing
room-she appears never to have known
one solitary thing about the piano till that
blessed moment-and then, just to pass the
time away while she's waiting to hurl q
few articles of vertu and bijouterie at her
man when he shows up, she sits down and
Hits q Tilt or SO about how things look
down in old Manitoba, where the sweet
paW-paws grow, and so on. The audience
makes her do this over again, but as soon
as she finishes the encore she jumps up
from the piano stool and is just as sore as
she before aha started nlQyfnR and
singing
The front door bell clangs. There's the
loafer now! She knows it's he! And he's
going to be picked! She won't do a thing
to him!
Having been told so many times about
1t. the audience Is Of course fully prepared
to see the young man come In picked. and
he doesn't disappoint EN-. He's there with
Ing clothes, of course. Men never get
burned up in vaudeville sketches unless
they've got their evening clothes on. One
end Of his collar is flying loose. and his
hair Is all rumpled. He's got the hic-
coughs. He is wabbly on his legs. He
Isn't In the least engaging or attractive.
Business of his rampageous wife grabbing
him by the lapels of his evening coat and
shaking him while he mutters thick apollo
gies.
Then they have It out She roars and
bawls at him, and he's there with the
comic stun. She accuses him of having
been out to dinner with some Tottie Cough
drop Of the chorus, or something like that
and he, w1nking wisely at the audience,
denies 1t, and exudes some more fun.
subsid1ng into tears. whereupon the picked
one relents, chucks her beneath the chin.
then folds her to his arms, and it's all
right. The audience sees that it's all right,
for don't they both walk down-stage. hand
In hand and Tilt another one about up In
dear old Honduras, where the straight
stemmed spruces grow, and then they're
there with some more Of the hug stuff, and
and in about an eighth Of a second the
pair appear at the side of the curtain to
take" an encore or two. They always
take" those encores whether the audience
wants to give 'em or not.
Why Is all this7
When you come to think II over there
are slews and slathers of interesting sit
uations in the daily life of men and women,
nothing whatever to do with the rum
thing.
Nowadays, the men who go home to
their wives drunk are the exception, rather
than the rule, as they appear to be in
vaudeville: Anyhow. men don't get drunk
at their clubs.
Moreover. only about one man in fifty
really belongs to any sort Of a club II
they must and viii get picked, they do It
at the groggeries where they are sure of
meeting up with their pals. But, among
average men. the club member is the ex-
But accepting the postuIate of the vaude-
Williams tfiat all hands belong to clubs II
Is perfectly obvious fact, not even open to
question: that the club member who would
permit himself to: get drunk around the
disciplined by his club mates, particularly
by the members Of the house committee,
and in all likelihood he'd be asked to resign
his membership.
Going little farther than that club
members don't say II don't know nothin'
about than that" or II seen wour moth
err" or Don't give me none O. your slack
sketch club members. ii, evening toys
too, talk like that. Club members who be-
long to the P. Mulvihill Clam Chowder
and Social Club or the M. Monahan Pleas
ure and Oyster Roast Club may converse
like that. bu. the conventional club MEM
Der doesn't.
But. leaving wholly aside the accuracy
OF the thing, 1t is a cinch that drunken
man isn't a pretty, much less a funny
object or spectacle There may have been
time, hundred years or so ago, when a
drunken man on the stage was looked
upon as the real humorous goods But the
worlds views as to the rum thing have
changed since that time, and neither on
the stage nor In real life is the corned man
regarded as IN any sense pleasing. agree
able or entertaining. The hiccoughing male
being with the thick utterance and the
vacuous grin and the fool quips and quirks
and outlets is assuredly best under cover
He doesn't belong. He Is removed from
the picture. He isn't even a good prop"
Him for the quiet room. behind the locked
door. wholly out of the public view. apply
Ing bromides and ammonia spirits and
other lotions and unguents to his internal
mechanism-but never on public view IL it
can be helped!
II we don't laugh at the souse when we
see him on the street-if, on the contrary
we feel bit sorry that a decent-appearing
chap should have gotten himself that way
why should we be expected to extract
enjoyment from the sight Of him on the
vaudeville stage. and laugh and crow and
gigg1e and litter and chortle over the pin
headed things that he hiccoughs?
Rampageous and bowling wives aren't
pretty. either, either on the vaudeville
stage or anywhere else. The spectacle of a
dead-sore married woman plunging up and
down stage, kicking out the front Of a pull
back skirt. while she raves and storms
about what confirmed bunnerinsd her
man has become. and how she Is dead GER
tain that, inasmuch as he isn't home he
has been hit on the collar by a brewery
wagon or struck on the wishbone by
steamboat, while drunk-we'd be only too
willing to leave 1t to plebiscite Of intelli- (
gent persons who habitually attend vaude-
cI.r xI,f, t.