The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1906-04-22
FLORENCE ROBERTS MAKES
SUCCESS IN NEW YORK
BY FRANKLIN FYLES.

fellow at. the trade, no matter how
hard he tries to, can see all there is IN
new play unless it is performed ade-
quately. Easter week, besides giving a
general arousaI to the drama. in New
York. has brought big batch of char
ity matinees. At two of them 1.-THE
Mallet's Masterpiece" was acted, once
badly by buffers and once cleverly by
experts-and the difference showed
how much authors are dependent on
the interpreters of their ideas This
comedietta by Edward Peples has the
whimsical conceit of a statue struck
with mallet by n malevolent enemy
of it's sculptor with the intent to spoil
it, but with the accidental result Of Civ
ing it the lacking stroke to make it a
masterpiece. The marble is the original
Venus OF Milo, holding a babe in the
arm that afterward was lost: and the
playlet altogether is so fanciful that it
seemed merely foolish in the poor pres
entatiOn and delightfully."- unique when
proficiently set forth-
X 81 x
Mrs. Fiske and Margaret AngIin in
renewals of Becky Sharp" and the
"Zira" version of 1.-THE New Magda-
len" and Florence Roberts in the in
PRODUCTION here of 1.-The Strength of
the Weak" are enacting-as Miss Nor
ris did in her day-heroines guilty of
some of the vice which agonizes them.
Miss Roberts and her play are known
in the west, but new here, and maybe
her hope of passing Miss Anglin, get
ting alongside Miss Morris and ap-
preaching Mrs. Fiske will be realized.
She is in one way or another like each
of them. and the play. by Alice NJ.
Smith and Charlotte Thompson, is of
kind with those that they have used
effectually. The reader is already
aware, most likely. that the central
girl is an orphan, who is misled by her
guardian, falls in love with his SON
her own half Observation-Disclosures her
dreadful plight and escapes from it by
suicide TO whatever fate may await
her at the further side of death. The
play, although it gave a shock to its
first audience, made a profoundly So
Der. serious impression, and Miss Rob
erts' own success was vehy sure and
strong.
a musical joke by Victor Herbert is
one of the saliencies in this Easter spell
of special entertainments. The bill said
that Heinrich Conried was to be beaten
by year in the American production
of next seasons operate novelty. Even
the title of ''Onkel Thoms Hute' didn't
give to many in the audience the tip
that the thing was traveSty of I'm
Gle Toms Cabin" Herbert took the
conductors stand, waved his baton in
conscious pride, and started a, big or
cheStra into a crashing WaSnerian
overture. Had the American composer
descended to imitation of the greater
German? No. Variants were heard
Immediately. They were puzzling
lapses from the Wagnerian method
They sounded like Gotterdamerune
with Gol-a-mighty breaks; they became
more impudent, and at length were
openly insulting with ragtime hunks Of
negro melody.
The curtain went up on a storm
scene. with visible stage hands work
inc wind wheel he in no
lightning pan and the thunder gong.
The escaping Eliza appeared with her
child in Il baby carriage and trundled
ii across the plank water of river.
\ pasteboard bloodhound was pushed
after her with a pole by Legree.' But
Eva entieed the dog from duty with a
chicken, which Uncle Tom at once stole
from both the child and the brute
Then plantation negroes gathered in
the garb of Alpine mountaineers. and
after yodelinE some Wagner stuff they
quit him altogether for ragtime finish
ing with an Old-fashioned minstrel walk
round for Shutdown. The music of this
joke was played by a dozen soloists
from Herberts own orchestra, and sung
by chorus of vOcalists ordinarily
heard on the stage as principals. for
the performance was given by Lambs
club volunteers, who couldn't have been
hired but did it with gusto for fun.
@: II. Gilbert was a church and stage
affair as the money was to go for a
memorial window in the church where
the stage woman had been Worship
CT. The pastor made an address: and
then. in the course of the thea rjcaI en-
tertainment, Clara Morris enacted \
very and variOusly Sinful character
Sardou's Odette, "A wife who didn't
stop at going astray neatly, but took to
opium and became sodden outcast.
I -.
4 creature to an audience that was
considerably like a congregation. How
ever, the moral lesson taught bv
Odette's anguish. when her depravitv
was exposed to her young daughter.
may have won the church peoples an
prevail To the oldish theatrical con-
tinGent il was a satisfaction to see
Clara Morris. though changed sadly bv
years Of wrenching illness, can vet re-
klndle the fire which, during the decade
OF l6'O-SO, famed fiercely in a series of
condagratory herOines. She believes
Swith many of the playwrights. that
tainted women are of more dramatic
value than those who are clean.
A Wife who Dretends to be a widow
Is the naughty woman in What the
Butler Saw" but she isn't bad enough
to be wicked, and her falsity comes to
nothing worse than Irritation. Besides
that she is melted to the deception by
ner own husband, whom she finds at a
resort hotel having a jolly time in the
guise of a bachelor among girls He
begs her not TO put him into an awk-
ward predicament by exposing his i'm
posture, and she assents If he will in
troduce her as his widowed sister-in-
law. Thereafter they are the centers
of two circles, his feminine, hers mas
cuhne, and both rhapsodic in admira-
ton The plan of the play calls for
attractive personators of the husband
and wife. James Neill and Maude
knowlton, Of repute westward but