The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-01-20
DAUGHTER DOESN'T DISPLAY
LILLIAN RUSSELL'S TALENT
BY FRANKLIN FYLEs.

one VI them 10 sleep; ism Jndt pOld
departure from the standards? OF
course, he has to have listeners in the
scere. The first of these is a nearly
grown girl, a maltreated truant from
poorhouse. She isn't coo big to he
taken up in his arms, but he doesnt
90 that to lull her to sleep. He carries
her out to wash her: and when she
somes back her face, hands and feet
are clean to the neck, wrists and an
kies, but at those points dark con-
trasts of soiled skin mark the limits
or Fritzs modesty in scrubbing her.
Further along I'm the play, when il
has become melodramatic. on q. stormy
night in a haunted old mill. with an
helress kidnapped by a gang of GRIM
mas, Fritz appears in the disguise of
plpulouS woman tramp. and shifts
the drugged whisky which has been
prepared for the girls ruination, so that
the several scOundrels dope themselves
with 1t. Thereupon Fritz sings ballad
with the refrain, I'm so sleepy-sleepy.
now. The tune and the voice sound
like hush-a- bye-baby. but the lulled
ones are the drowsed sots, and the
words tell both the heiress and the
founding how to escape.
X
Strolling Broadway in quest Of nov
city, Iaf1nd the names of Rose Coghlan.
Marie kessler, Ethel Levy and the Rus
sell Brothers lit up on the fronts Of
vaudeville theatres. Jimmie RusselPs
health is so bad that he can't act
throughout a long play any more, and it
is pity that John isn't the one to give
out. Not that John may not be better
fellow than Jimmie, but it is Jimmie
who makes folks laugh with his scream
ing Irish servant girl. That caricature
was transferred. several years ago,
from sketch into a drama with Jim
mics screams so much louder and long
er that they brought on bronchitis.
After rest. he and John have returned
to vaudeville, and on going in to see
what they are doing. find that it is
The Irish Servant Girls in its old
time version. And every scream that
hurts Jimmie tickles the unknowing
audience the same as ever Stage fun
is serious business, sometimes.
Ethel Levy is another proof that COM
edians don't always smile because they
can't help it. George Cohan and his
wife, Ethel, sang and danced JOLLY to-
gether in his eXtravaganzas, and he
wrote songs within the small compass
OF her voice, giving her things to do
that reached the utmost of her ability
without going beyond il. Yet suddenly
she quits his company, sues for divorce
and becomes a vaudeville top-liner
with fifteen minutes of singing and
dancing taken from the roles she has
acted in his plays. That seems to open
up a cross account Of royalty and ali
mOny doesn't it?
Marie Dressler's vaudeville outbreak
is with burlesques of Louise Leslie Car
ter and Blanche Bates in characters
which David Belasco prepared for
| them. Marie no more than initiates
Miss Bates as the Darling of the Gods
and the Girl of the Golden West: but
her fun with Mrs. Carriers Du Barry
is travesty of the bedroom scene. with
the affluent Marie i'm stingy little bed.
operating wooden image of her
lover as a ventriloquist does a dummy.
and finally hiding him from his enemies
by amply sitting ON him. Marie is the
coarsest actress that ever was so fun
ny that you can't blame her
The other woman emblazoned on the
vaudeville signboards. Rose CoghIan.
compels me to remember that she
played in "Forget-Me-Not' so long ago
that Lester Wallack was alive and she
was the feminine leader of his company.
Her present piece. 1.-The Ace os
Trumps," Is a condensation of the
drama that stirred New York and Lon
don thirty years ago. The details are SO
altered as to be wholly different: yet
their trend is absolutely the same. The
notorious adventures has become gen.
timely reDentant and DESTROYS of lead
ing virtuous life. Her adversary i'm
the verbal duel is not a former lover
nghting for his sweethearts sister, but
the son of the woman's dead lover, com
batting her demand to meet his fiancee
i'm reputable society. The twenty-min-
ute limit prevents the sub-plot of the
fierce foreigner lurking in shadows
thirsting for Roses gore; but it permits
the effective climax of the beaten sin
ner's capitulation, with its snowy man
ifestations of horror. This crouching
trembling exit of the vanquished adj
ventures was the talk of the Theatrical
town in Wallackian days and. repro
duced by this still splendid actress. il
thrills vaudeville audiences.