The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-04-14


two men, Arnold Daily and Eddie FOy,
are similarly lighted up, DAILY is the
hero of a play by 4 woman, Rida John
son Young, and FOy is the ugly come
dian in a show Of beauty; so this is a
week of feminine theatrical domina-
zion in Broadway. Mrs. Young's com
edy. 1.-THE Boys of Company B." is her
second whack at the scheme of her
nBrown of Harvard The title seems
n promise a war drama. There is an
old lyric of our rebellion, THE Pride
nj BATTERY B." much favored by re-
citing girls, professional and amateur
which tells that, in the lull of a battle,
o child tOddled over from the Yanks to
the Rebs to borrow some tobacco for
the men of battery B. and that in the
renewal Of the conflict next day, the
grizzly fOemen Of yesterday, softened
bv the little creatures act, aimed their
guns away from each other. Now,
when The Boys of Company b. comes
YOUR way, next season, remember that
7 told you it was no drama of battle
carnage. actual or averted, but a
hIithe comedy of bloOdless soldering in
a camp of the national guard.
X \ X
The men playwrights, in all their
. search for American subjects, left the
summer militia camp for a woman to
utilize. and I doubt if Mrs. Young
would have thought of it if she had not
done well with Brown of Harvard"
thereby ascertaining the theatrical
value Of boisterOus bOyishness. In her
first play she exploited Harvard col
legians and their sweethearts. In her
second she sets forth the young fellows
of a crack New York company of the
national guard I'm exactly the same
shirt of bOyish tOughness touched with
cirIish tenderness. Mrs. Young is no
Genius. II her serious moments she is
inept and i'm her attempts at dramatic
stress she is futile. A melOdramatic
element jim Brown of Harvard" was
eliminated by Henry Miller, its pro-
Queer. as soon as possible after the first
performance. l guess that Daniel Froh-
man. when ne took hold of THE Boys
Of Company b." made sure that the
sentiment was thoroughly humorized
and witticated. Therefore, we have
Arnold DAILY transferred from Shaw
uCse To GilbeTtdn satire. He person
ates a poor young New York lover of
an heiress, with Shaw's caustic whim-
sicalty and with Gilberts more agree
ably satirical pleasantly. To be spe-
citic. DAILY is an ever ardent but never
romantic sutton of a girl whose world
IL mother matches her with a million
pitched i'm a key of common sense, ag-
eressive i'm the way of the modern
hustler. and always disposed to adjust
ethereal love to material conditions.
That is the higest original quality in
the composition.
As a popular entertainment, however
"ThC Boys of Company b" succeeds
by a duplication, not a repetition, of the
l. i
Brown of Harvard" The young fell
lows are changed from collegians to
guardsmen; their place of mixed duty
and deviltry is a military camp instead
of a university campus; and the back
ground is the annual practice of a ma
tiOnai guard regiment on the Hudson,
instead of an annual boat race on the
Charles. This new-coming Mrs. Young,
deficient in dramatic power, still is
clever enough TO make the assertively
aesthetic Arnold Daly-who is equal to
Richard Mansfield IN unadjustability,
with commonplace managers and
everyday authOrs-sing a coon song
while chorus of company boys march
in a cake-waik and other jolly gaits
not taught in military tactics. They
tess young guardsman in a blanket,
guy an awkward squad at drill, haze a
dignified old recruit and do other
stunts calculated TO equalize the ages
Of the whole audience, no matter what
the birth records may say, to an aver
age not extending above the teens.
X X
Two fair women, Ethel Barrymore
and Amelia Bingham, have had differ
ing weeks in New York, Ethers being
triumphant easily, and Amelia's disas-
tTous arduously. Their contrasting ex-
periences, one in one evening and the
other in The next, show how stage
vogue goes up, up and up, or down,
down and down, according as it gets a
momentum amounting to velocity.
These actresses are figurants in socie-
~ as well as in drama. Ethel, daugh-
ter Of Maurice Barrymore and Georgia
DTeW-BarrymOre, granddaughter of the
deceased Mrs. john Drew, and niece of
the alive John Drew, is the crowned
and sCeptTed, adulated and adored
queen of the high joint lands of Bohe-
mia and Smartdom. She hOb-nObS alike
with people of Murray Hill and of the
tenderloin, and gets away with the
homage of both kinds. She is accepted
as the belle ideal of the Gibson girl
type Of beauty, and if she were to
stand On her head, III either a play or
a parlor. that would be regarded as a
charming attitude for a young woman
ally.
X x
Ethel Barrymore's new demOnstra-
ION OF her power, even proves, in
DONG things which she ought not to
do, is in His EXcellency the Govern
or That play as first given here,
elsht years ago, had Jessie Millward
III It's character of a brash-mannered
ana accommodating woman from the
London music halls, who imposes her
sen upon the governor of a British
island colony. and Jessie's performance
vas racily humorous. In that cast
Ethel played a young girl whom three
men followed with dog-lilxe docility in
Ieashes of fond infatuation; and she
Was irreSiStibly fascinating with her
voice OF coo and her air of wheedle.
wen, in the revival of the piece. hav-
ing meanwhile become a star actress
whose hrilliance is auriferOus, Ethel
transfers herself to the roguish. all but
vicious, beauty from vaudeville. a role
absolutely ont eida f7e1- moo Of