The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-06-30
A Few Heated Term Productions
BY FRANKLIN FYLEs.

stock company; next Kelley took back
the place from McAllister; and each in
his turn was dotted on with no dfsre-
gard of the absent darling. The Kelley
/ Khan of Kelley's male admirers, and
/ the Kelley Koterie of fond girls. did
not disband during McAllisters sea-
sons, yet became equally Jealous MEM
bers of the McAlHster Dramatic club
| and the McAllister Shakespeare circle
Pins with portraits of both were worn
side by side on impartially fond
breasts. All that, though, was in times
of peace.
! 1t is so different now-so dreadfully
/ different! This is how the change to
\ dtscord came about. At the end of the
regular dramatic season a few weeks
ago, Kelley was engaged by one Har-
| lem vaudeville theatre to act in a third
of-an-hour version of THE Three
| Guardsmen," and McAilister by an
other vaudeville house to give a con-
densatiOn of Don Caesar de Bazan. ,"
That brought on twisting, wrench
ing heart-rending, soul-sundering
June in Harlem. Brother was turned
against sister and sWeethearts sepa-
rated. Those who had bowed down be-
fore the two stage idols. one after the
other, didn't find il easy to worship
both at once. | went to Wednesday
and a Saturday matinee to see Kelley
and McAllster in cOmpressions of old
fashioned melodramas, each personaIi-
ty fearless adventurer from Gas
cony. in Paris. where he slew many
scoundrels of WOndrous prowess. and
rescued an imperiIled princess to be
| his bride. / saw that Kelley and Nc
Aliister were gOod-looking fellows. and
rather clever actors; and 1 wondered
If they were cOxcOmbs to be f1attered
by their audiences, composed for those
afternoons mostly of girls in state of
ecstacy, or if they were sensible fell
lows, VINO took the foolishness as part
or their business. ] am told that they
are chums, but 1 don't believe It, Act
oTs are not of a disposition to love
their friends when they are profess
sional- foes.
And the girls? They have become
intense partisans. Kelley and Meal
! lister pins were on the paIpitating
bosoms of the audiences that I saw.
but no one emotional shirt waist bore
both, as OF yOre; and in each assem-
blase the lovers Of one actor who had
become haters of the other actor were
in an overwhelming ma iority. And
tho masculine factions are quite devil
ish. One evening, bunch of gladiolas
was handed over the footlights to Kel-
ley, and when the paper fell away
from what should have been bulbs. a
bunch of lemons was disclosed So
now, from night to night, retaiiatory
onions. or even eggs. are expected to
assault McAilister. There may be
no bullets, as in the Forrest Macready
riots. but, # the fight be delayed until
the Fourth of July. some one NAV get
his trousers burnt by a firecracker. or
hot slap on the wrist from a pin
wheel.
The name of new play blaz ed over
the doorway of the only theatre i'm the
BoWery that wasn't altogether dark
Bearing in mind that we are at mid
summer, what kind of a play do YOU
guess it WASP A drama of crude ex.
elements, do you say? That's not the
right answer. A farce of hOrseplay?
You are wrong again. A rough and
tough vaudeville burlesque? You still
are away from it. With the name of If
given to you, Her Past" surely Won
can conceive that the heroipe has been
wronged by perf1dious lover; that
she has a new and sincere husband. bv
DetrOthdi. If not by marriage and that
emotional agitation comes of the dis
closure of her biography to the man.
That the new play is acted in a the
atre usually occupied by Yiddish
company, although this July perform
q
composite of Camille" and East
Lynne" with an admixture of social
ism: for the Yidiish drama in New
York is socialistic to the verge of an
drcny; and ] was not disappointed. The
woman with past was personated by
Fernando Eliscu. who has played some
of Mrs. FNiskes roles very vividlv. and
who, upon Bertha Kalich being made
an English touring star. took her
flddish place in the BoWery. The
plays interest turned on the husbands
treatment of the bride after he had
found out what she had been before
marriage. Well, he wabbled in his at
tltude, now true and again false to his
love Of her. and earning the vigorous
misses of the audience, when the char
acters Daraded before the curtain
after the Denultimate act AS to the
heroine, she was driven from her
bridal home by her spouse's lack of be-
lief in her worthiness. and his famiIy's
cruel condemnation. She came back
later to die of consumption. like Ca
mile, in the arms of Armand. or LADY
Isabelle in the embrace of Sir Arcbi
bald Her phthisical death made the
play denOuement more satisfactory to
Miss Eliscue than to the audience.
Actresses do dote so on slow demise.
while audiences general don't
On the night that I was there.
though. the lugubriety of Miss Eliscu's
dying graphically was turned to jolly
dtversion-that is to say, her emotion
al stunt was querred-by a cat that
Sauntered in at one side of the stage
circled slowly around the agonized cou-
pie, and creDt off at the other side.
The audience passed from a smoker to
a roar of laughter. Miss Ellison didn't
lose her nerve, yet nanifestly wanted
TO know what was funny Her COM
panion spied the cat. and told her i'm
a Whispered aside. Both turned their
faces from the people in silence until
the leisurely cat had made its exit.
But the climax of Her Past" was
ruined for that evening. Why. oh
why, are cats let loose in theatres?
About the Yiddish socialism In Her
Past. II was supplied by man
newsboy-a middle-aged worker on a
youthful iob-whO believed that all
that is is wrong. and preached pessim-
ism loquaciously with the collection of
his weekly bills. Such a character in a
play before other than a Yiddish au-
dience would be regarded as an absurd
tty, but not amusing enough 10 save