The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1906-08-05
MELODRAMA SUPPLANTS
COMEDY IN NEW YORK
BY FRANKLIN FYLES.

presence; so wickedly distorted In body
that, If you We're to meet him IN the
woods, and Mr.. Hyde were to come
along, you would fly trustfully to DR..
Jekylrs embodiment of diabolism for
protection. And IL the legislators
shouldn't feel that Arizona needed to be
held responsible for the ugliness of this
keeper l would still maintain that his
territorial conduct Is not consistent
with statehood.
II have a torture cell for such as
you" was what this Richard Deadeye
| Hyde said to the hero-cOnVict, but /
can't show you the nasty way he
said it. do you see that?" and he
pointed to a dial on the prison wall.
''That registers the voltage of the cur
rent that l can send through the occu-
pants of my electric chair In the cell.
1t shows whether he is being tortured
mildly or terribly, and when the needle
turns clear around, 1t means that the
victim Is dead. No lost soul i'm hell
ever suffered the agonies that can in
fiict with that machine" and he ran
out line of ha-ha laughter in f1end-
ish crescendO.
I couldn't see the utility of that out
side indicator of torture inside the cell,
except for the information of the audi
ence. Mebbe 1t would be taken down
If a congressional committee were ex-
pected, and, of course the wall would
not become transparent to official eyes,
as 1t did for theatrical spectators when,
to kindly obfige the gentlemanly vii
lain and make the heroine yield to him,
the keeper put her in the chair and
sent some lightning through her. But
the tOrturing machine may be found In
the first cell to the right as you enter
the main corridor, and l don't think the
keeper would attempt any conceal
ment; he IS too proud Of it.
Fni her along IN 1.-THE King of Dia-
mOnds," the New York dressmaking
establishment of Mrs. Osborne is
| shown. YoC may not know that Mrs.
Osborne is a designer of dress for the
smart set, yet may recall Mrs. Os-
bornes playhouse, which was the
small-sized, short-lived theatre which
wealthy FOUNDERS capitalized, of which
the rich Norma Munro of recent asSo-
citation with Mrs. Leslie Carter in the
automobile marriage adventures was
! openly a hacker, and which was frisky
with such companionships as Evelyn
Nesbit and Stanford White. Yet there
are three reasons why Mrs. Osborne
may not regard this exploitation of her
business as good advertising, and I'M
dertake to stop it. The shop shown is
not modish; the audiences do not con-
tain possible buyers of her gowns; and
the woman who figures as her in the
action is a cross creature, cruel to the
heroine, who is a seamstress, while
cringing to the rich adventures, who
! is a customer.
In this scene the playwright's prac-
tice of seizing material is illustrated.
An English pantOmime clown, named
/ Walton brought over sketch in which
/ he was made up to look so much like
a row of wooden toy soldiers that he
couldn't be picked out until he moved.
Then he held a funny conversation
with one of them in dumb show. This
| is initiated in Mrs Osborne's shop by
a silent dialogue between a comedian
and a dressed and wax-faced dummy
model
| Three-fOurths of 1.-The King of Dia-
mOnds' is cock-sure with things used
/ in previous plays. The hero is told in
prison by dying convict where TO find
some buried diamonds, and after
breaking his way to freedom, he pos
sesses himself of the treasure. That is
Monte Cristo," Of course, and he even
remembers 1.-THE world Is mine" A
! murderer
of lens that accidentally photo
graphed the crime, as in THE Octo-
room" The hero, being caught in
chaste wife's room, falsely accuses
! himself of being a criminal in order to
| save her from scandal, as in Arizona"
and other pieces. A boy of good birth,
| like Oliver Twist, falls into a Bill
Skies hands and is compelled to steal.
The adventures is made to confess by
showing her persons whom she believes
| to have been murdered as in the third
| degree" episodes of several current
| plays. There is u subway tunnel scene
similar TO the one in After Dark" but
| the kidnapped heroine is rescued from
/ one car by the hero, who gives chase
and comes alongside in another car,
/ like the automobile and locomotive race
/ in "BedfOrd's Hope
The most curious transfer, however.
/ is from Peter Pan" in which play
Maude Adams runs to the foOtlights
/ and begs the audience to say that it be-
| lieves in fairies. In 'The King of Dia-
monds" the comic man makes an ap-
peal for virtue, but the characters will
only laugh at him. Then he runs for
ward, stretches out his arms to the
audience, and cries: "You know I'm
right. don't you?' The answering
| yes makes Il lCGI1eICOuS
George M. Cohan and Fred Stone
| played pitcher and catcher at baseball
| for charity, and 5000 persons paid a
dollar apiece TO see the game for fun.
Other comedians acted, too-star ones
| like Louis Mann. Nat Wills, Tommy
Ross and DeWolf Hopper, each cos
TUNED for a character from his stage
repertOry-but COhan and Stone only
were amusing. Much was expected of
Hopper. He wore an evening dress
suit, high silk hat and a false beard;
and when he marched into the grounds
with the two mines, beside dwarf sim
ilarly costumed. 5000 picked him for
the winner of the antic prize. And
when he took the strikers place, a
mighty cry went up of Casey at the
batr' But the disappointment which
the verses tell of when mighty Casey
had struck out" was equalled when
mighty Hopper hit the ball with a ten
foot bat; was caught out and had
missed being funny.
The explanation isn't to Hopper's