The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-08-16
BY FRANKLIN FYLES.


expensive nor striking. The perform
ance is, in short, wholly pleasing along
conventional lines.
So much for Mr.. Greet's contribution.
II isn't his fault that mosquitoes insist
on improving their minds by attending
his uplifting performances in great
numbers; nor that. even as the lower
classes munched apples in the pit at
Shakespeare's old Globe theatre, so do
the mosquitoes in the grass nibble on
the ankles of the higher play-goers at
Columbia. Nor is it any comfort to feel
that they do il wholly in the Eliza
bethan manner Nor, again, is it Mr..
Greets fault that our favorite speeches
are punctuated by the roar and dash
of cable ears, Gathering up Broadway
quite regardless of Shakespeare and
the higher thought. The actor-man-
ager, without doubt, would have been
as glad as any of us to strange the
cable cars. But you can't look a gift
college in the location. II the Arden of
Orlando's wooing will re-echo with the
horns of racing motors. ii simply will,
that's all. And 1t must be said that not
one of the tennis players, half sur
rounding the comedy on the south,
lifted their voices in their sport. They
must have claimed their scores across
the nets in sign language, for not
point was called out, not even love
or let" For all they cared, the string
of growing Roosevelt's and the rest of
us could have our LAS You Like It. as
long as they could have their tennis.
And, oh, they did look to be having
such a good time.
x X X
James Forbes is the other author
than William Shakespeare who has
r1Ia cta un
to yield familiar quotations. Make
noise like a hoop and roll away" says
the hero of THE Travelling Salesman"
and the people yen greeting to fresh
saying that may displace the already
stale "skidoo" ard "twenty-t for
you Not all the slang in this comedy
by the author of 1.-The Chorus Lady"
is original; some of it is from the
ephemeral vocabulary of the tran
sient day. nor is the young man set
forth to represent travelling statesmen
typical of the business generally, for
those engaged in it range from scholar
~ diction to illiterate dialect; but he
stands fairly for that considerable mi
nority to be found as guests of mid
ding hotels in middling towns. Bob
Blakes author makes him talk like
many frequenters of New York cafes,
and like the sporty chaps whom Ace,
Hobart, Cohan and others have put on
the stage. Not within a quarter of a
century, though, when NJ. B. Curtis
made a fortune by writing and acting
''Sam1 of Posen," have we had play
with a commercial drummer for hero.
A Smallish railway station is shown
first. and for ten minutes rural men,
women and children gossip, scandaliZe
and quarrel while waiting for a train,
DC GA mr.
for a zap and b'gosh comedy. The
travelling salesman, Bob Blake, acted
with fat fun effectually by Frank j.
Mcintyre. arrives off the awaited train,
which carries the ruralists away. and
most of them are not seen again. Bob
is left with Beth Elliott, the ticket
seller and telegraph operator Bob and
Beth have fits of love at first sight:
his is brash and hers is calm; and the
best quarter-hOur section of the play
covers their Christmas luncheon. Beth
is boarding house lonesome, Bob is rail-
way car lonesome, a holiday feeling of
affinity warns their hearts to each 9TH
er. and they banquet JOLLY on a bench
with the Christmas viands from the
girls lunch basket They are as quick
to start and fast to get along as Romeo
and Juliet, and as sincere, she soon
convincing him that she is not a girl
who fools with "drummers" habitual-
ly. and he pleading his suit with all the
glib eloquence of slang, old and new.
4 X
An object of keen regard in the open
ing performance was the famous Rose
Coghlan's young niece. Gertrude. 1
suppose that. beyond a vague recollec-
ton aroused by the name of Coghlan
in the bill, the second nights audience
- g..
a Miss Nobody from Nowhere dis
cOvery by the management of chance
talent of a kind needed by the plays
heroine. The character is that of Beth.
the ticket agent and telegrapher, and
doubtless Mr.. Forbes sought to get her
as far as possible away from Hoyt's
not yet forgotten lunch counter girl of
songs, dances and short frock in "A
Hole in the Ground Anyway, this
Beth Elliott is no flirter, or sasser. but
a wholesome. hearty creature, humOr-
istic and hail-fellow, but not at all a
soubrette. To my thinking. Beth is
the worth while person of the play. AS
Gertrude Coghlan was before me,
glanced by chance to the back of the
parquet and saw Rose Coghlan lean
ing out of a rear seat. Instantly Rose
came back into my memory as 1 had
first seen her: which was not at the
outset of her brilliant career as Lester
Wallack's leading actress, but earlier
than that as an Irish brunette beauty |
among Lydia Thompson's English |
blonde burlesquers. Annually, Lydia |
brought over one actress to contrast in |
dramatic dignity with the song and |
dance charms of herself and the rest |
IF her company. Once it was the state |
y Pauline Markham, and again the |
Ada Harland who is now Mrs. Brander |
Matthews. but most notably it was |
Rose COghlan. such a rich. rare beauty |
rs Gertrude is not. Yet as L looked |
back and forth from the woman in the |
oarquet to the girl on the stage. ] felt |
sure that the Coghlan genius by in
leritance in Gertrude had been coached |
or the role by Rose, so much did the |
of the youngster resemble |
hat of the veteran in her girlhood. |
The first-night knowers, though, were
of Gertrude Coghlan as |
party in a recent divorce suit and some |
'ther Tenderloin wagging of tongues.
x x X
A second act spell of conviviality
axes place in Bobs room at the Elite
lotel. Grand Crossing. where ne and
our other wayfaring statesmen gather
or congenial solace on a Christmas