The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-08-18
Totem Poles in Old Broadway
BY FRANKLIN FYLEs.

When at nome, In front of Eskimo
houses in Alaska, marched into Broad
way on the warmest August night we
nave had That was in the new comic
opera of THE Alaskan" They had
chorus men inside, to sing with the solo
barytone about his family record as
craven in the sign language of those
memorials, and the beasts, birds and
demons carved on the outside gave no
sign of torrid discomfort amidst the
painted frigidities. less stolid team
of six dogs lOlled and painted as they
drew a sledge from an icy hill into a
snowy valley, Sixteen girls, CARRIED
thick with furs, coming out of a bliz-
card, and skipping down a glacier.
dropped perspiration from their noses,
where, for an Illusion of Alaskan at
mosphere, icicles should have hung.
Those posts, dogs and girls were the
salient sights in this musical show of
our northwest territory. The play has
been made so near to its locality as
Seattle, by Joseph Blethem and. Harry
Girard, who know Alaska intimately,
and there is no need to doubt that the
places and people are as true as the
totem posts and the sledge dogs to the
originals-excepting the chorus-girl In
dams and a stranded FlOrodora sex
tette turned miners
You may get educational satisfac-
ton, but nothing else that occurs to me
at this writing, if you put your money
into an Arctic play in equatorial wealth
er. THE Alaskan might freeze to
death in New York winter, because
it is a frosty thing anyway; but, pre-
sented in heat and humidity, st can do
nothing else than melt away, like a
block of ice in hades. To look at play
erS shiVering in mimic chilliness while
you are plying a sultry fan, is 30 see
the very best craft of the stage go for
naught. Can a Siberian exile wiring
your heart for freezing exiles while you
are in a parboiling theatre, and would
gladly slide barefoot on q frozen pond,
or go to sleep with gauze pajamas in
snowdrift? That is one reason for
the futility Of 1.-THE Alaskan" but
there is the worse fault of amateurish
inability in the words, tunes and con-
StrUction. The composer, Girard, acts
and sings the hero in manly fashion;
other strangers from the Pacific coast
are Edward Martindell, the casts best
actor and vocalist; Teddy Webb,
likeness of Frank Daniels; and some
likeness of Frand Daniels; and some
frOlicsOme young beauties have been
brought across the continent; but all
in vain.
If Richard Harding Davis had not
put his farce of The GaIloper' among
his popularity published books, memory
might well be confused as to what the
play was originally like. Raymond
Hitchcock, in pursuance of an ambi-
ton similar to Francis Wilson's, to
leave song and dance behind him.
played in Davis piece prosperously two
seasons. Then he suddenly made up his
mind that he had been happier with
dancing girls about him and music in
the air. Instead of taking the risk of
a new piece, he had the sure one al
tered into a comic opera, "A Yankee
Tourist and this he played last year
But it someS into New York practical
ly third play, so much has it been
altered since it Travelled from Chicago
to San Francisco. That first musical
version was made by Wallace Irwin, a
witty versifier. and set to music by AL
fred G. RObyn; as Davis has left mer-
riment behind him for the serious bus
mess of studying horrors in the Congo
and revealing them to humane Amer
lea. Upon his return he made what is
practically the third version of his
farce; and while it adheres to the gen.
eral plot of a smart New Yorker
maSquerading as a war correspondent
at the Greco Turkish war, in order TO
pursue a Red Cross nurse who has fas-
cinated him. and is himself pursued by
the eX-Wife and Wife-elect of the man
he is pretending to be, the scenes of
cOmicality are so mainly new that "A
Yankee Tourist" is to all intents a new
play. The Red Cross nurse has dash
and chic which she never had before
because Flora Zabelle impersOnates
her; the racy humOr OF the ceiling
walking ex-wife has daintiness and
charm impaired to it by Helen Hale;
while the excitable wife-elect, the
widow of one Schwartz described as
having left her two breweries and a
department store in Newark-is far
funnier than heretofore with Susie
Forester Cawthorne throwing all her
bulk of person and comicality into the
embodiment.
The songs are mostly new. People
who saw its first musical version may
not recognize a change in Raymond
Hitchcock's entrance ditty, but it is a
| fresh recital of the mishaps of a Yam
kee globe trotter. The wharf and
steamer scene has a stokers' chorus.
in which group of husky men sing
and dance with a peculiarly colorful
sense of rough characterization. A
stewards gong is agreeably dainty be-
cause the stewards are pretty girls in
natty uniforms, led by an arch little
Eva Fallon. Still in her smart white
4 lTOuS6ES Silt anu NDt lSitililAnStN SAIL u
ed Flora Isabelle and Helen Hale de-
veIop value in a song from the line
! How'd you like to have me for a
sweetheart" which is one of those
| tunefully commonplace that set an
audience whistling.
The last act is the wholly new por-
ton of the play, set in a beautiful
picture of rocky and densely wooded
mountain pass between the Grecian and
| Turkish lines. A striking effect is
made when, with the first view of this
scene, picturesque groups of Turkish
| soldiers, in the midst of fiercely bar
barrie song, are 1ured by their maiden
captives into an infectiously WillOwy
waltz. The music of this part of the
play is RObyn's best. A later song is
more striking still, but, though Twins
verses are acceptable. Robyn's music
| is pleasant and Miss Zabelle's singing
is charming, it's effectuality is due
largely to George Marion's ingenuity
| The song is something or other senti-
mental about a rainbow, and the mu-
/ sic is of the sort called dreamy Girls
| in short, soft, white Grecian togas
dance sinuously on the darkened stage
to the rhythm of the tune. They are
in couples, and hold long scarves OF
/ thin silk between them, presenting
! axyayxy coTny of fha rainbow The girls