The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1906-04-29

pierced the fat of the actress and
punctured the heart of the woman;
that the burning of Joan was not less
mortal than the roasting of Fanny.
The truth is that. as the drama she
used was worthless, there was nothing
to save its principal figure from be-
ing an object of mirth instead Of an
Impressive parsonage from history.
Miss DavenpOrt's beauty had for many
years been extolled without stint, and
no doubt a change of view regarding
II astOnished and tortured her: but 1
don't believe il killed her, as William
A. Brady declared in his recent cur
tain lectures to the critics, for she
wasn't ruined in pride or purse, and
she died eminent and wealthy.
Fanny Davenport and her Joan OF
Arc are recalled by Amelia Bingham
and her Joan of Arc. Amelia has been
out Of your sight this season, but we
have had her here as the leader Of
Proctor stock company in the theatre
where Fanny was similarly employed
by Augustin DAILY, and when Fanny
subsequently appeared as Joan. This
IS the thlrty-ffth and last week of
Amelia's engagement at a thousand
dollars each. L accept the asserted
figures because they don't seem I'M
likely. While It is true that some OF
the actress enterprises had not been
prosperous, she still was we'll up pro-
fessionally, and personally she had a
social vogue TO make her valuable at
the head of cUt-rate local CON-
pany.
Well. for Amelia Bingham's quit
lance week Proctor agreed to put her
into a really spectacular new drama
ttzatfon of Joan Of Arc, which she
might use on a tour next season. The
play is a patchwork by Lawrence
kaSStOn of earlier ones, and calls for
no description, as it contains no nov
city. a salient fact, however, is that
Miss Bingham is wearing the veritabIe
costumes that Miss Davenport did the
whole Davenport outfit having been
procured. In the first performance she
was nervously unsteady, but I thought
II came less from the unreadiness of
nasty stock production than from
fright at having to fill, literally, the
armor In which Miss Davenport had
been r1diculed- But 1 was mistaken
There was TO be a surprise When the
battlefield was disclosed, and Joan
stood forth in the martial toggery that
mad made Miss Davenport look like a
quarter-ton can of beef, Miss Bingham
was a plump, yet shapeIy, woman, Civ
ing a suggestion that the armor con-
sisted Of electroplating acquired bv a
dip in a chemical solution.
The artful Miss Bingham wears the
artistic Miss Davenport's sheath of
metal, to be sure, but she has had its
torso cut and fitted like a taiIor-made
coat So, while this Joan in martial
gear is curvilinear with Miss Bfng-
hams amplitude, she is no FaItaff in
cumb roUS armOr. With a mass Of vet
low hair escaping from her helmet
ana her glittering arms and legs
taperlng to No. 6 gauntlets and No 3
shoes, she is new Pauline Markham
leading march of amazons.
Sydney RosenfeId, in a speech be-
tween acts of his new play, 1.-THE OPP
timist." illustrated the trials of an
opening performance with an anec-
dote- He said that, going from New
York to Boston by steamer, and when
rounding famous Point Judith in a
storm. the passengers were tossed and
tumbled in their berths-
Really, you know" he heard an
Engllshman complain piteously to the
steward. there might be q, less terri
Tying way 10 get to BostonI''
And RosenfeId knew a lot like that.
As long as he stuck to being funny
in The Optimist," it was a roIIick-
ing comedy, but when he became phiIo-
sophlcal the play got to be heavily
dulI. The optimist was a middIe-aged
friend OF young lawyer, who loved
me hancee of another fellow, and the
friends Dreachment that Its all for
the best made him a benign bore.
where the author had meant him to
De cneerfully enjoyable. The oIdster
took the yOungster to a soubette's
nat for consolation, however, and there
the worst Of the drama and the best
or the diversion took place. Life in the
girls rooms was at least funny Two
sportlve old men-One of whom said
ne had thought of marriage as a f1Il
stop, but found il only a senicOIOn-
fooled with slangy sirens of the comic
opera stage. They belonged to the
company of THE Little Volcano and
one of them, who had the title role
described her costume as being lava
Ike gauze. 1t was through that rner-
ry creature, melted by the optimist.
mat the blonde and boyish sufferer
found surcease from his marry-in-baste
love
The odds were even on the original
sweetheart and the ensuing soubrette.
when the third act started Then an
unexpected and Irregular entry dashed
into the race and won the stake. which
consisted of the prize blonde DARLING
BOY RMS surprising interlOper-pret-
lily VlVaclous in the person of Con-
sueIo Bailey, a recent leaper of the
gap between society and the stage
was sure winner. There were two
farewell interviews for the bov-one
with his earlier welded but -no-yvife
girl in handsome furs, and the other
with the sOubrette APPROXIMATELY
gowned in scarlet. Then the optinict
said, with a touch of Ibsen: Let us
nave light" A crushed strawberry
sunset had settled on the boys law
office. 1t was in the cleaning He
turned on the electric light, and there
would you believe 1t if you didn't
know me to be almost abnornalIv
truthful?-there stood a hitherto un-
seen and unmentioned character in the
play! It just shows what any one of
US might find at night if we were to
suddenly illumine our third-fioOr hack
What was more, the unexpected ad
ditiou of the cast of The Optimist''
turned out to be a fuII-hedeed '.opno-
site 10 the hero-that is to say. his
afhnlty-sprung Minerva-like from the
head Of Jove Rosenfeld. She cIeaTad