The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-08-11
Melodrama Holds Stage in New York
BY FRANKLIN FYLEs

al five New York theaters Song-and-
dance farces at four and a blend of
those two different kinds of play at
tenth The only literary merit on
oGr stage this week is in the revival
of two old pieces by stock companies.
New York has to wait till September
for intellectually in stage entertain
ment There is oddly to describe,
though. in THE Chorus Girls Luck in
New York" by reason of its hybrid
makeup The British capital has had
"A Poor Girls Luck in London" with
the misadventures of a maiden hunted
down. Gotham has had THE Chorus
Lady" with n good show girl protect
ing her imperilled sister. So why not
a play with title dovetafiing those
two? And since il is hard to protect
originality against plagiarism, what is
to hinder the making of a play about
the luck, bad and good, OF a chorus
girl who goes 10 the rescue of her sis
ter in the theatrical purlieus Of New
York? And there is no law to forbid
the dramatiZation Of such degeneracy
as the -White-N esbit affair re-
vealed. However. this trebly initiative
exploit in commercialiZed Stagecraft-i
with its authorship set down in the
program 10 a probably non-existant
john Oliver. but produced with all
the force of ample resource by one Of
the nldudSETS WHO are TO give
'e1n what they want"-strixes out
strongly in it's own way by being be-
sides A sensational melOdrama and a
seriO-comic comedy. also a sOng-and-
dance extraya ganza Of the familiar
type. How can they beat it? Especial
~ as the bosh and the trash of it are
given with actors and scenery of
much excellence.
Hence and therefore The Chorus
frirl'S TnPE n NpyU YorL' n
the studio of sybarite who is a STAN
ford White and a Harry Thaw for
salacious deviltry-and there you get
the newsy element in this play. An
impeccably VirtuOus chorus girl is en-
1iced there to pose as a model-and
there you have Evelyn Nesbit, as she
described herself in court, for a hero
inc. She is an innocent, but not ig-
norant, theatrical girl, with a reso-
lutte purpose to avenge her sister,
whom the artist has made an unmar-
ried mother-and there YOU have
Forbes chorus lady associated with
the social castaway who has tOttered
hatless ard hapless through thousand
stage fictiOns. Nor is that other in
evitable figure of current melodrama,
the Villains evil concubine, in a SPAN
eled black gown that exposes her
siTenic arms and her sardonic bosom
absent from the lineup of characters.
The SybaTite drugs the chorus girls
wine. but likely she has read EVELYN
Nesbits testimony, for she slyly swaps
glasses with him. But she doesn't fly
from him, for he is the wronger of her
sister, and she has set out to punish
hun. Thus far. and until a quarter to
nine o'clock. the play runs along in a
smoOth-wOrn groove; but now for half
an hour il is 'The Chorus Lady" over
again in the girls dressing room of a
nd l.
extravaganza with eight young women
brought from the London music halls
10 dance with a gymnastic vim in con-
sonance with the violence of the dra-
matte action.
Here is the place for a paragraph to
tell about the glamOring illusion of
the stage. This ballet chorus is shown
first as arriving at a stage door, They
are in street clothes, without any
fiuffiness, and they look like saIesgirls
getting to their days work in a de-
partment store. The next scene ex-
hibits them putting on the final toilet
touches for their stage activities, and !
the change is from caterpillar TO but
terfly. The spectators have been in
clined TO guy them when, unadorned. |
it seemed absurd that Johnnies should
chase them; but now. in a uniformity
of gay garb. they are a satisfactory
octette in lively antics
There is sure reason why pony
ballets' are not as beautiful as the sets
of Gibson show girls" said q manager
whose attention | directed TO the faces
of this latest importation. These were
chosen when youngsters who showed
the requisite agility, and if they have
grown up with a fair degree of comeli-
Tess that is as near an approach to
beauty as We have a right TO expect. !
il is different with the 'FIOrodora'
49, Il
be tall and slim. with weakly inexpres- !
sive but delicate visages, and convex
curVatures of their spines. They should !
have singing voices, although that isn't !
a absolutely essential if only they are
super-lovely 20 look at. and all the !
acting ability they need is to hold their |
heads high. throw out their chins, put |
on an expression betwiXt inanity and
fEsOlence and walk with the long, lazy, |
undulous stride that is just beginning
10 GO out of fashion in Fifth avenue |
The manager of a show employing a |
Gibson set of beauties in Broadway I
never knows how many of them will /
line up at night for duty. 1t depends |
on the physical condition in which the 1
motors of their admirers have brought /
them back from a champagne after |
noon at the race track: and substitutes |
from the rest of the chorus have to be |
kept ready. But these pony ballets |
are reliable. and they can be taken /
through the country on tours, whereas |
some Of the Gibson models won't quit |
the Tenderloin for any such love or /
money as ordinarily can be offered" |
Whence come the New York chorus I
girls? As many from the carpet of |
culture as from the pave of depravity |
AS likely from houses of ease as tene-
ments of hardship; and the accepted /
type of them as ungrammatical with |
their slang, coarse with their uncon- /
VentiOrality and impOlite because they /
don't know good manners. is unfair I
caricature. And the young fellows who |
sing with them are very apt to be edu- /
Gated gentlemen in hopeful training /
to become actors. Take for example /
the Pianophiends, who are new i'm an
old play. There are four pairs of |
them, besides a leader, and the nine /
persons play five pianos at once with
apparently spontaneous speed, and in
q very smart, up-to-date manner. The |
Nd-ln