The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1906-08-12
Theatrical Season Starts In Blaze of Glory
5Y FRANKLIN FYLEs.

III OF NAN
New York, Aug. 10.-The new theat-
rical season started in q blaze of glory
and siZzle of distress. Hattie Will
lianls made her debut as star anG
the heat and humidity reached their
most unbearable limit on the same
evening, and 1t was a three-hour battle
for the complete surrender OF one or
the other. But II was a merry war,
and the music. fun and dances of the
new extravaganza conquered. The
question is: II Hattie Williams can
make an audience happy OH a night
when Just to live is to suffer, how
many degrees more joyous will she
make US when she is not handicapped?
''The Little Cherub," which was the
first note OF the new season sounded on
Broadway, after a preliminary week OF
me1odranatic shrieks and howls east
and west of the Great White Way"
came from London, and has dropped
the names of a half-dozen or so OF It's
authors somewhere In the deep blue
sea. With its additions, alterations
Pand interpretations, there got TO be TOO
many 10 enumerate, l fancy. Even
the man who "Americanized" it isn't
mentioned on the program. although
his work is brought TO mind by the IN
PRODUCTION OF the American verb, TO
twenty-three." Over here "The Little
Cherub" is pretending to be by only
Ivan Caryll, whom we must thank Tor
some very sprightly music. and Owen
Hall, whose libretto doesn't supply so
good a reason for gratitude. He con-
fesses to having picked UP his plot in
Paris, though he needn't have, as there
wasn't enough OF it left for identifica-
ton.
Jimmie" Davis, which is Owen
Halls name everywhere but on the
atre program, Is fashionable London
er who is ever and anon upsetting that
worthy town--and entertaining it-by
presenting its citizens as no better than
they ought to be. He had to change
the title of his farces TO The Girl
From Kay's," because the saleswomen
at jays hat shop maintained that the
wicked sirens presented as prototypes
Of themselves were libelous misrepre-
sensations. Then Davis put forth The
Little Cherub," called, at one time, "A
Girl on the Stage" and it's intimation
that women of the stage were general
ly vicious caused London, to protest
again. Over here We are not apt TO
take the matter so seriously. VINO
would become wrathful about mu-
steal frolic whose plot is so vague and
tiny that one can't remember it from
act to act? We can't take as serious
view OF the case as London did, or as
Davis appears to take of himself. He
is the man who maintains that the
writing of musical farce is just twice
RI a
edy. because all the elements of the
latter are necessary, with ditties and
dances in addition. 1t would be a
pleasure to meet Mr.. Davis some time
to ask him what he thinks THE Little
Cherub" would be with the songs left
out. 1t would have been dangerous
question TO have put TO the sweltering
first-nighters, who gasped and painted
their way between the songs that made
them happy.
II was the songs and the beauty of
the women who sang them, and the
splendor of the gowns they sang them
in, that made 1.-THE Little Cherub" q
success, and kept the spectators from
being peevish about the plot. The rich
and remarkably tasteful Frohman pro-
duction kept the eye dazzled from first
TO last 1t didn't weigh on our minds
that James Blakeley was supposed TO
be a professional stage manager re-
hearsing the four daughters of an earl
and their friends for an amateur per-
Torrance of a popular opera called
1.-THE Little Cherub," because he didn't
let the fact hinder him from singing
several amusing songs amusingly. The
best was about lad named Willie who
went a-fishing, and Blakeley justified
his importation from London by illus
trating the boys keen expressions of
silent expectation, as he held the line,
and of dawning Joy of the shiny sort,
when he felt a bite, The Englishman
couldn't make us laugh quite so much
with his earlier song, about an aspir-
ing dramatist taking his five-act trag-
edy called tom, the Piper's Son." on
a round of New York managers, be-
cause the names of Americans had
been stuck into verses descriptive of
experiences wholly British. The line
about each manager who refused the
manuscript doing it 80 politely"
doubtless allowed many pointed hits
at the London actor-managers, who are
suave and slow and elegant in their
manners, but applied poorly to our
producers, who are concise, abrupt and
DuS1neSS-ilKe,
It didn't matter to US, either, that
Hattie Williams was supposed to be an
actress who deliberately fascinated the
hypocritical earl for the purpose OF
Matchmaking him into giving his con-
sent to her marriage with his son. We
were more concerned with the fact thai
the latest Frohman star looked extra
ordinarily handsome In series of real
ly remarkable gowns, and entertained
us with some sprightly songs. She
didn't divert us enough with her ditty
In the first act ITS the Girls" to get
our attention from her beautiful APP
pearance in a green lace coat and chif-
fon dress that made the feminine on
lockers gasp in admiration. But in
the second act, though her ball gown of
gold spangles was more splendid still,
she rose above her clothes by giving
keen point to a very catchy song called
Experience" Surrounded by richly
costumed show girls. she sat on the
edge of a fower-decked supper table,
and recounted the very rakish expert
ences of a girl who was, indeed. ex-