The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-10-20
Some New Plays on Broadway
BY FRANKLIN FYlES.

plays by Clyde Fitch, David Belasco,
Edward Peple and Charles Klein?
Which it did expect, and it did get To
be sure, Fitch's Miss MeCobb, Mani
curiste." is patched out from a rem
nant of the material of Her Own
Way" which he wrote for Maxine Ell
lott. In that comedy, Georgia Law
renee was funny as a Miss McCobb,
who gossipped while she trimmed ard
polished her customers finger nails 1T
doesn't take much to set the star bee
buZzins i'm an actress bonnet. Georgia
heard the call of flames trumpet and
told Fitch about it, Write a play
for me-" said she. 1T must be a short
one said he. So she decided that
biscuit in hand was better than a loaf
beyond her reach. That was why a new
comedy by Clyde Fitch was in a vau-
deVllle program last Sunday Yes on
Sunday. New Yorks explicit law
against all stage shows on Sunday is
enforced as to full-length plays, but
not as to short ones. Thirty-seven the
aires were open with vaudeville last
Sunday. If, now, the say-so is true
that each breakage of the Sabbatarian
Embarrassment law calls for an I'M
written license fee of $40 TO 5000. ac-
cording to the prosperity of the thea
tire. the alternative being police raid,
well. then
But l won't let sordid commercialism
Obtrude into a consideration of dra-
matte art and literature. 1t is an old
rule of the playwrights that true dra-
mas first requisite is a personification
of. forces in opposition. Fitch knows
that In looking about for an en-
bodied force TO oppose a manicuriste.
what else should ne hit on than Chi
ropodiste? Maybe the feminizing Z
de 81 M nj
but there's some punning in Miss Nc
Cobb, Manicuriste." to lead me astray.
And a lot of slang.
X
Fitch's opposing forces are a girl who
holds mems hands while trimming the
nails of their fingers, and a girl who
similarly gives comfort to mems feet
by pruning the nails of their toes-also
treating. presumably, their corns and
their bunions. Yet Fitch doesn't make
himself an Ibsen for realism. His
Miss McCObb shows some of the proc
esses of manicuring, the scene being in
her shop. but Miss FlOsh doesn't bare
a foot. as her pedallic ateliar is on the
floor below. If, now, Fitcn were a
musical farceur. Ina CINE row Of
chorus girls with their toesie-to Otsies
barred TO the footlights. What he does
with Miss McCobb and Miss Flosh ex-
poses. not the hands CT the feet of
their customers, but their own lOvelOrn
hearts. Each has a chauffeur for an
affinity. They think for a while there
is only one of him. while for fact
there are two, and no cause for jeal-
ousy; but the misunderstanding lasts
long enough for duel between the Ia
dies. which begins with hatpins for
rapiers, and ends with satisfactory eX-
plantations. If Clyde Fitch gets 10 per
cent of the gross receipts Tor four
act comedy. how much does Georgia
Lawrence pay him for a tWenty-minute
farce in vaudeville Again l am de-
grading dramatic art and literature
with sOrdid considerations. Tut-tut,
and tush, too.
OF course, you know that Charles
Klein wrote. in The Lion and the
Mouse" the first effectuaI dramatiza-
ton Of John d. Rockefeller and the
Standard Oil company. | suppose that,
after getting no more than a good liv-
ing for twenty years through twenty
plays, Klein is now we'll on his way to
becoming quarter Millionaire from
that one work, with four companies
performing il simultaneously. So 10
one will pity him if he never hits on a
great success again-unless. like poor
Davey Lloyd, who went crazy striving
"a write another comedy like The Sen
ator. he takes Il pistol and an unfin-
ished manuscript across the river to
the woods of the Palisades and finds
relief from The puzzles of stagecraft in
the firearm. Not that Klein has i'm him
the possible making of a suicidal ma
MAC, even though he believes that
Christian Science enabled him TO write
The Lion and the Mouse and didn't
help him with the Daughters of Men. >"
Unlike both of those. THE Step-Sister"
undertakes to solve no social problem
The author can have had no Profound
ed ethical purpose than by means of
that title to send people to their die
tionaries TO find out if there is any
difference between a step-sister and a
half-sister. To save you the trouble
of turning the leaves to 6, as l did
in Webster and Worcester, the Century
and the Standard, 1 will tell you that.
of two half-ssters the one born of
remarked father or mother il step
sister, and the other one is not. Now
aren't you glad you are reading my
letter?
Chrystal Herne. the taller Of James
Herne's two daughters. with a hol-
low chest and a husky voice like Ethel
Barrymore, ought to be much obliged
to me for thus calculating that she
plays the part meant by the title of
The Step-SiSter," and that Grace il
kins enacts not a step-siSter, but mere
ly a half-sister. Those girls of enc
mother and two fathers are at outs be
cause Chrystars live father has lost
the estate of Grace's dead father IN
Wall street. The play begins In a
dressma king shop dominated cruelty by
Grace. and worked in pitiably by
Chrystal. Both actresses are clever.
and il is interesting TO watch the
struggle of Grace, the hateful one. TO
hold her own with the audience against
Chrystal, the lovable one. Alike they
are New York favorites deservedly: yet
! give 1t TO you for fact that New
York managers, in casting plays, ig-
more the thousands of able performers
in located stock and minor travelling
companies, and choose from the hIn-
dreds whom they know about. Chrys-
tai Herne and Grace Filkins are eX-
cellent artistes: under the incentive of
rivalry. they Guido their previous eff
forts; yet the country abounds i'll ac-
tresses quite as facile- Dorothy DOTr
and Mathilde Cottrelly are two more
selections of familiar experts to the
exclusion of strangers. Quite heartless
am / about players? If l had my way.
/ wouldn't let one of them make re-
appearance after once pleasing ne. |
would like 10 have a totally new lot in