The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-08-04
New York's First Melodrama
BY FRANKLIN FYLEs.

respectable former sweetheart at
cards. She won't play unfairly, until
seeing an accidentally dropped king at
her feet, at a moment when it would
enable her to lose to the intended vic
tim. she substitutes for one which has
made her hand invincible, thus cheat
ing cOnscientiOusly. In some dramati-
cations of Ouida's Under Two
Flags" an honorable army officer
plays trick to save a duped cOmrade
from card sharDeTs. Henry Arthur
Jones most effective incident in The
Last Card is the cutting of cards for
wife by her prOfligate husband and
a decent lover, but in that instance the
play is fair. In David Belasco's use of
it in The Girl of the Golden West he
has the rough but honest girl cut cards
with a sheriff for the life of her out
! law lover, whom she is concealing. She
eliminates chance by pulling a cold
deck from her stocking, and showing
a full hand against her opponents
flush. With these proofs of the dra-
matte value of crooked hand of cards
/ played for d straight purpOse-and
! how many others there are | don't
| knows it any wonder that Jack Dia-
mOnds first foul deal in virtues cause
/ wins a point for this first cheap play
| of the season?
!
King and Queen of Gamblers" that
the output of dramas for the multitude
viii be better than. or essentially diff
/ ferent from, what they have been. All
| its eXcitements except the one of the
cards depend on gunplay. The fire
arms vary from the heTOine's neat lit
! tie pistol through the hero's and the
villains bigger ones up TO that gigan-
/ tic cannon in which the girl is a hu-
I I'll.
| boom throughout the action, solving
all the complications. and they be-
| come so common that the audience
cares no more about them than for
frecrackers on the Fourth of July.
There comes a theatrictl furry in
| Broadway with Aug. 3. 1t is incense
quential dramatically. yet it breaks
| the summer dizziness when the summer
/ is but twO-thirds through, and is sup
ported by men who have been left in
! town by their women folks, or who
! have come here on business connected
| with autumn trade. In the winter our
audiences contain women in a MAORI
| ty; in the summer the overbalance is
the other way; and therefore, the new
/ August plays are planned for mascu-
| line amusement That is to say, they
present neither social nor sentimental
/ problems calling for action by brain or
heart. but are shows of beauty to be
admired without agitation, if at all,
and OF foolery to be enjoyed with smiles
| f laughter requires irksome effort
So August courageous in Broadway
with stagefuls of human beauty 1.-The
! FFoiies of 1907" is an all new show, and
| several theatres are open this week
with old plays freshened by interpola-
tons Ingenuity has done its utmost
to exhibit girls singularly. What do
| you calculate as to twelve of them
| quatted on illumined mushrooms in
| the guise of bullfrogs? Take into &C
count. please, the fact that the jump
| ing ends of frogs are the marketable
portiOns-that they are served COM
monty in the restaurants where the
eater feels like acannibal-and then
have such a human shape that the
of those dozen pears of girls legs
you should imagine easily the sight
of those dozen pairs of girls legs
| in point of fact-with frogs heads and
feet. each creature crouched on her
mushroom, with her chin on her knees