The evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1907-1908, 1907-10-10
IN II THEATRES
WORKING THE INVITATIONS
RACKET TO DEATH.
Four Local Playhouses in the Throes.
Notes Of the shows-What the Name
"Ben Hur" Means.

0Cu AuI W6dns.
Fads at the theatre, like fads everywhere
else, are transitory. We have had our
rural comedy fad. our spectacular extrava-
ganza fad, our innocent college comedy
fad, our Bernard Shaw fad and our West
ern melodrnma fad, the end of which lat
ter, as witness the popularity on Broadway
of that noisest and wooliest gun play of
them all, The Round Up" is not yet.
But most of them are as dead as Caesars
grandmother, and that's what gives us
hope that one of the most tenacious fads
of them all. the imitation fad, that is, will
soon have had its day and pass on.
Just now, however, the fever Is at its
top-loftiest. No theatrical producer seems
able to escape it. It's more conta gious
than measles. No musical comedy or
vaudeville patron is immune from infec-
ton. That show is an anomoly that
doesn't feature the mimicry of stage fav-
orites by some near-aetress making q
cheap bid for popular favor by hosting
herself on the regulations of helpless ac-
tors and actresses of prominence. Try to
escape it, and then turn TO the task of
lodging your creditors with a sigh of re-
lief for the comparative ease of 1t.
IT is not that these limitations may not
on occasion be productive of enjoyment.
They may even be a work of art. They
are deliciously a work of art when it is
Cissie Lotus who performs them. Miss
Lotus never had a real rival, but there
are a few who are not wholly out of the
running. Elsie Janis, the youthful star
of THE Hoyden,' is one of them. Ger
trude Hoffman, who is at Proctor's this
week. is another. Aimee Angeles used to
do a good job at 1t, too, and there are
even one or two more. Last Monday a
new show had its premiere at the New
York Casino, which was an limitation"
show worked to the ultimate limit. In it
Blanche Ring, Alex Carr, JEFF de Angels,
Henry Miller's son Heron, and a consid-
cradle ompany of others initiated every
body and everything in sight on the Gay
White Way" 1t was a fool show. but
Miss Ring and Mr.. Carr are among the
best mimics in the business, and will prob
ably carry it to success just on the
strength of that.
If YOU could confine the instigators of
the craze to such clever people as these,
there would be very little kick coming.
But you can't. Every imitation actorine
that ever graduated from holding a spear
and otherwise concealing the back scenery
thinks she's up" to dong Anna HE'D,
Eddie Foy and George Cohan, and the
vaudeville audiences have to take it.
II wouldn't be 80 insufferable If they'd i'm
itate somebody else once in a while. Anna
Held. Eddie Foy and George Cohan don't
need any advertising, though they proba-
bly, don't object TO it, but they can't help
themselves. Having peculiar and marked
characteristics, they are the easiest posi-
BILE to initiate. And, SO, Anna Held Ed
die Foy and George Cohan it is ad nau-
seam.
The funny thing about it is that the au-
\ diences never seem to mind. They even
seem to like Ii. There's an actress at the
Newark Theatre this week initiating Eddie
Foy and Anna Held. Her limitations are
MS much like the original as the morning
after is like the night before. But she gets
away with 1t. What's more, hers gets the
biggest "hand" of any speciality of the
show.
Newark is very deep in the throes of it
this week. with your kind attention I'll
try to give you a few limitations is Moth
ing new to be heard here. You get 1t on
an average of four vaudeville shows out
of 1ve-as inevitable, it is, as the land
lady's prunes, This week, unless you seek
the nerve-torture of melodrama, you can't
keep away from it. Even Waldmann's
buriesque bill has its limitations of Anna
Held ct ais. The Newark, with "Fascinat-
ing Flora" is provided for as above, and
Proctor's has Miss Hoffman,. The Shubert
has no imitator In the usual sense, though
Miss May Belfort does an act in the same
category. Hers really is different, how
ever, but of that more hereafter.
Miss Hoffman at Proctor's Theatre imi-
tates the same old trio, Anna Held. Eddie
Foy and George Conan. but she does it
with far greater elaboration than one is
accustomed to see given to these acts.
She dresses each part completely, and
adds a touch of novelty by making the
changes of costume from top to toe ard
from skirts to trousers within the audi
ence's view. In each case her impersona-
ton is very lifelike. Eddie Foy never has
been done better by anyone. No matter
if you have seen it SO often before you'll
enjoy Miss Hoffman
The limitations are only a part OF the good
things on Proctor's bill, than which no
better, let us say in passing and In the
opinion Of one who has been going there
these several years, has ever been put to-
gether at the pretty Park place playhouse.
That one-act play In which William Haw-
trey acts with such distinction is one of the
finest. II has genuine drama in It, and
that's something one doesn't often get In
vaudeville. And for real histrionics, right
off the jungle, watch Macart's monkeys!
They are a scream.
At the Shubert Miss May Belfort's act Is
one of the p%rettiest on that interesting
bill, and 1t consists of no slavish imita-
lions either. She sings Hattie Williams's
Experience song from The Lite
Cherub" with a Tilt and a charm all
her own. Then she gives us n Vesta Vic
toria sort of a song and a coster imper-
sonation u Ia Chevalier along with 1t that
looks like the real thing. She concludes
with a song in French, something like the
songs Nine. Yvette Guilbert sings, that, she
is as chic and dainty in singing as possible.
Perhaps Miss Belfort's German-Irish an
cestry accounts somewhat for the piquancy
Of her acting. At any rate she is there
with the goods"
The booking of Ben Hur'' at the New
ark next week makes timely the observa-
ton that of the million or more persons
who have seen the play, or who have read
General Wallace's book, few have ever
given thought to the significance of the
name of the hero. In ancient Hebrew
Ben Hur literally translated means 9TH
Son of Hur,' General Lew Wallace Sc
looted one Of the oldest families of Israel
49,. III. 80 T,.rrn bic ton. MI l..al