The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-11-03

bank presidents son accompanied the
chauffeur. for who would guess the ma
ture of the cargo? But the automo-
bile blew up in the Italian quarter near
one of the bridges to Brooklyn, mob
gathered in a twinkling, and it took
quick work by the police to save the
exposed half million from being carried
away. Now see how the humble italian
theatre beat out our American theatres
in newsy use of that incident. Within
twenty-four hours it was being copied
in Loot the Loot" l suspect that the
play was made up from several cur
rent melodramas of eastern graft and
western hold-ups. 1t looked to me as
though hlack-hand bandits figured in
1t. L think that, in the show, the half
million in the motor car was the vii
lain's loot of the savings bank which
he conducted, and that the automobile
was exploded by bomb placed in it
Dy the nero, and that the mob, COM
posed of defrauded depositors, got
away with the treasure.
X X X
That dramatiZation of an attempt to
grab money in the street brings me
back to George AIDES newest study
for the stage in slang. The twelve
per-week young man in "Artie'' goes
sparkling girl who lives in an all
alike-in-the-row house Surveyors come
through the cheap street with tape
lines and tripods. "Wfat are you do
ing?" Artie asks. 1--WE are going to
run a elothesline through these back
yards" is the reply. But the chap
works in a real estate office, and ne
guesses they are laying out the route
of a suburban railway. He takes an
option to buy five of the houses and
sell them at an advance to the COM
pany He hasn't $40 to his name, and
the play sets forth how he contrives 10
put VI a hundred as a token of good
faith on one Saturday, five hundred 10
bind the bargain on the second, and
eighteen thousand in full payment on
the third. sells out at thirty on the
fourth. and thus clears twelve to start
married life with the girl
That is what links four SATURDAYS i'm
the plot of this four-act comedy-and
ii is not enough. l may as well own
UP right now to the reason why | have
delayed to write about George AIDES
| ''Artie" till the second column of this
letter. 1t was reluctance TO record the
fact that the play is q fiasco in fun,
in so far as tickling New York audi
ences is concerned, by a humorist wh0
time and again has made them laugh
tremendously. 1t is not easy to tell
why Artie hasn't dropped into Broad
way popularity. He talks in glib slang,
with a few new idioms among the old
ones; yet he doesn't spellbind us with
The AIDE eolloquial diction as others
| have done. He is an embodiment of
audacity, and a ready liar. such as has
| been oft admired on the stage, yet his
| braZen cheekiness doesn't entertain us
much. Lawrence Wheat, the young ac-
tor assigned to play him, gables east
/ ly, and has a white-tOothed smile, vet
no one seems to take him very kindly.
|
One thing to say in AIDES defense is
that not one of Arties half dozen asso-
oiates is a good-looking young fellow,
nor is a single girl among their sweet
hearts bewitchingly pretty. Talent is
scarce and beauty absent. 1t is my
opinion, though, that the futility of
''Artie" couldn't be turned to effectual-
! ity by company of the best experts.
! There is some connection at a trade
union ball with which the action be-
gins, and some burlesque of real estate
boomers tricks at the sale of lots with
which it ends, but the intermediate
matter isn't coherent, connective, or
in the least calculated to vitalize the
wit and humor of the AIDE slang.