The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1906-06-10
ROOF GARDENS DISPLACED BY
SUMMER THEATRES.
BY FRANKLIN FYLEs.

New York, June s. Looking down
| from the three sides of a triangular
tower building in Broadway at Forty
second street and listening you can see
and hear parts of the performances in
three roof gardens. They bear the al
Turing name; Of Aerial, Wistaria and
Paradise. They cover the tops of five
! dramatic houses. They are open this
week, literally open, as their sides are
| movable to let in whatever breezes
there may be, although their roofs are
IN permanent place to keep out the
rain.
We had a dozen theater-top gardens
wide open to the sky, and we have them
yet; but their use never was profita-
ole, and now they are abandoned Wet
! and windy weather emptied them so
many evenings that managers dared
not risk the expense of first-rate enter
talnments, and the public wouldn't go
to poor ones at all. SO theatrical per-
formances are not given any more in
actually outdoor places along Broad
way. The Aerial, Wistaria, and Para
disc gardens are summer theaters built
above winter theaters, and their 1906
shows are as costly as though we were
in January instead Of June.
No things in Seeing New York" and
4 The Governors Son. the musical
farces at the Wisteria and the Aerial,
are more interesting than their illus
tration of two comedians faithful serv-
ice to their wives. Joseph Hart wrote
enc play, George +. Conan the other,
and Carrie De Mar Hart and Ethel
Levy Cohan are at the fore. 1.-The Gov
eTnOr's Son" was at first a vaudeville
farce with Cohans Only-Father and
mother, tCleTabIe actors in an old style,
and son and daughter, dancers in a
new style Since then George has come
into popularity more prosperous than
that of aIy other individual on the
stage in the world-what with making
entertainments and keeping their own
! ership. The average of the public's
taste is on the level with his own taste.
I've got 'em doped," he is quoted to
me as saying, and when they wake up
/ III be dead one. But if the dreamIl
/ only last years longer tneTelI be a
/ quarter Of a million n my wad."
The new version of The Governors
/ Son has a nearly new set of songs,
| made by COhan for a market which he
| thoroughly understands, and which is
eager TO buy everything he puts on
/ sale. No opening night could be more
/ IiprnaTiOus with laughter that screamed
and applause that deafened. And Ethel
I Levy was in the feminine spotlight, in
stead of Josephine Conan. Georges
/ sister had gone out OF the Conan ferni-
I Eine focus, and his wife came. into il
/ during the four years since the play
/ was new. George has made q place for
/ Ethel in his shows. She is ugly, but
/ very striking, and he costumes her with
bold Singularity that renders her dis
/ tinCtive. She has a singing voice with
I a register of about half an octave of
| low notes, but they are good as far as
/ they go. and he provides Songs that
| they viii cover. She has nimble feet at
/ the end of 1.-the legs, and he has taught
[ her his own ways of dancing remark
/ ably. Her ability as an actress is
/ small. but he writes roles 10 utilize ev-
| cry bit of it without disclosing its limit
/ In short he has carried her with him
/ self into an amazing vogue.
Joseph Hart has left himself out of
/ Seeing New York and put mis- wife
/ in for all she is worth; and Carrie De
/ Mar is worth 2 great deal as here pro
/ jected for the first time into the middle
/ Of New York at the Wistcria Broad
/ way didn't know that for a long while
/ she had Eeen acquiring accomplish
neTtS as q singing, dancing, mimicinC
coincidence elsewhere, and is inclined to
/ Fin roses On itself fO~ discovering her in
I the new musical farce. But Hart knew
/ she was going 70 be there, at the front
/ cenCeT of the stage, privileged to work
right up to her utmost capacity, and
/ therefore quite impossible TO be over
/ looked as an entertainer who beth hand
| some is and handsome does.
/ Wistaria has so by 200 feet of area on
/ its one level floor, AMI what is spoken
/ On its stage doesn't matter much to
/ the further portions of TIE audience.
/ end in whiting the play little wit or
( bUmOT has been wasted; but an abun-
dance Of work and money has been ex-
/ pended to make it a fine show Of fair
women and funny men. It begins with
/ pictures Of a rustic old man starting to
see New York, especially a widow who
/ has answered his advertisement for a
gay acquaintance in town. These pref
atOry views are moving photographs.
and one shows him in the predicament
told originally of Horace Greeley in
Hank Monks stageCOach. Horace was
jolted through the bottom of Hanks
ramshackle vehicle, you remember, and
had TO run with II for miles over a
Rocky mountain rough road Charles
H HOyt, in "A Trip to Chinatown, -
made a character say that he had rid
den on foot similarly from the Palace
Hotel, San Francisco, TO the Cliff
House. Joseph Hart photographs it into
a Holyoke mans hurry to catch a train
that VIII connect with a widow in New
York. His experience with her and 9TH
tfS dLteT getting mere are set LCrLn III a
highly embellished piece IF sensuous
nonsense.
One Of the sights that he sees in New
York is the phenomena of air currents
IS influenced by the skyscraper build
ings. Two Of the towers on Broadway
-twenty-stO structures on small tri-
angular plots-encircle themselves with
cyclones that dip down to the street
with such force that store windows are
sometimes blown in. What those whirI-
winds do to women's petticOats is a
common subject for New York jOkers,
but no joke to the women who are
caught at those tempestUOus corners on
days Of violent atmospheric disturb
anCe.
It is impossible to say who IS the
Ibsen among the cOllaboratOrs in See
ing New York" for Hart has been
helPed out by William a. Brady. Gin
ton Crawford and A. Baldwin Sloan in
making the show: but whoever the H.
sen in the quartet may be. he has turned
the windiEess Of the two flatiron build
mgs into theatrical realism.
one scene IS at a corner OF tho Times
all structure. A dozen choice show