The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-09-29

had come from far away, and in some
way or other was the better for it.
But when Salvini was urged to play
here in bad English-'the worse the
better" his manager declared, 'as /
there was a fad for foreign guff''-the /
tragedian did not reDrove his sordid |
adviser with lofty disdain. For Sal t
vini was something of a commercialist
himself The story is true of him /
that, the provision in his Italian con-
tract for four candles per night having /
been copied into his American con-
tract. he insisted in getting the TWEEN |
| ty-eight tallows at the end of every /
week, although condlelight was I'M
known In our hotels, and carried a
! trunkful of the accumulation to his |
home across the Atlantic. So il isn't |
week, although candlelight was I'M /
| judgment as TO acting in English. The I
proposal was that, as he was playing /
Othello in Italian to Booths Iago in
English, It would arouse extra inter- |
est If he spoke English-"the worse the |
! better"
What you call an italian here-a !
dago?" he said. We'll, New York
would not pay for an Othello in dago
English
Very likely. though. the liking for
foreign things was sufficient here to
render Salvini's fear unfounded. But
ii seems to be different now. 1 told
you last Sunday that David Kessler
| turned from Yiddish, and Adolf Phillip
| from German, to make English debuts
| as star actors in Broadway, without
transferring their talent from one Ian
guage to another. They gave up the
struggle at the end of a week. So 1t
| is all the more remarkable that Nazi-
mova's audience was enthusiastic, al
though she spoke English badly in a
! loquacious role. SO much of gloved
applause hadn't been heard here this
season, except when that other fash
! ionable pet with a foreign accent,
FRITZ Scheff, reappeared after an al
most fatal illness. But did either of
these women acknowledge the tribute
in that regally condescending manner
| formerly customary with visiting for
| eigners? Indeed no. Their art is far
apart in its uses, but their manner was
oddly the same. And 1t marked a GER
| tain likeness in the vivacious beauty of
the actresses from st. Petersburg and
Vienna They frisked. Mrs. Nazimo-
va Fritzi-Scheffed in bubblesome
delight, just as Mrs. Scheff had Nazi-
movad in hearty glee. Neither bowed
| coldly. Both assumed a winSome man.
ner that said, This is really much too
much for little me-" whereupOn the
applause burst into cheers. The Rus
sian tragedienne. like the Viennese
| ICSOINtu " lllS
kisses, and at last to a hugging ges-
ture that seemed to embrace the whole
assemblage.
If neither O'Neil with the obsolete
| ''Virginius," nor Nazimova with the
modernism of 1.-THE Master Builder,
| can save the week for satisfaction at
| the theatre, said I to myself, surely I
may depent on Richard Carries new
nonsense, THE Hurdy-Gurdy Girl,
for the solace of an evenings fun. Has
| earle ever failed to make an audience
| laugh? Never until now. If 1 smite
him hard on the wrist with my pen,
it is because he has sold me a gold
! brick. Not that the label THE Hurdy-
Gurdy Girl" is false to the contents
for there is the expected heiress who
was stolen in infancy by an Italian or
| gan grinder, and reared as a street mu-
stefan. The disappointment is in what
| goes on around her. earle isn't in this
show himself, and it is hard to believe
| that he cOncocted ii. Space given to
much description would be wasted.
] Pretty girls on the stage are. readable
usually, but 1 can't undertake to write
entertainingly about Carries new lot.
/ Yet he makes them strive hard to
please. They enter oddly as scrub
women in a hotel, and throw them
! selves on the floor with soap, brushes
and pals: they display themselves
next in the natty white suits of wine
! agents; they become milkmen, post
men, newsboys and street cleaners;
/ they figure femininely as sirenic bellies
| of the tenderloin, and they sing and
| dance cutely and cunningly; but it is
made apparent that, without mascu
| line wit and humor, show girls can't
keep a Broadway audience easy in its
| seats from S:15 o'clock till II. The
| funniest scene is that in which May
| BOley, initiative of Rose Stahl and Ell
| fie Fay, as a manicure torturingly clips
and files, saws and hammers, the fin
| ger nails of foolish old beau.
| Annie Yeamens, aged y, is the most
applauded showgirl in this play. That
| is true, notwithstanding that she ut
! ters only PAL words during the whole
evening. The people wait patiently
until II o'clock for the survivor of the
Harrigan & Hart times, and the moth
er of the lately deceased Jennie Yea
mans, to do something or other, and
| then, when she dances a little in the
| final scene, they give her what the
press agents call an ovation. To see
the old lady smilingly footing it on
| the stage, and, half hour later,
dressed in black mourning for her
daughter on her way home alone, gives
a SOLDERING look into the forced giaeties
I VI SNcl5C nv
! Walter Lawrence, a principal in the
! cast, lost his singing voice on the
| opening night of The Hurdy-Gurdy
Girl" and his songs were sung by a
young man brought forward from the
! chorus. It was a mistake not to ex-
plain the trouble to the audience for
surprisingly many didn't understand
why, once in while, at ballad juno
! lures, Lawrence was doubled by the
| chorus chap. It was confusing to the
unknowing ones to see the hero, having
| told the hurdygurdy girl that he loved
| her, let another fellow step in and sing
it to her. while he stood idly by. More
| over, it was confusing to the spotlight
man. He knew that he was to keep
| the glow on the girl, but should he in
clude in the illumination her regular
| lover, or leave him dim and light up
| the incidental vocalist? The substi-
| ture sang right at the audience disre-
| garding the girl, and let It go at that
| but the two others In this human tri-
/ angle were as uneasy as though they
had been in a French farce of tricky
| wedlockS The regular wooer sought