The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-12-20


tudinizing for the camera. With John
Drew capering gleefully, Tom Wise
posing grewsomely- and Georgia Drew
Mendum, as the girl in the case. peer
ing from a closet, it was extremely
funny. 1t might be adapted effectual-
ly for our vaudeville.
*x
Fanny Ward first flew into a New
York theatre with the wings of a par
ticularly pretty Cupid in some extrava-
ganZa or other. / don't think 1 am
mistaken about that, as the picture re-
mains vivid in my memory. Then she
scared away to London and turned her
fancy toward emotions of the heart.
She was adulated lately as the Lady
Kitty who pains and pleasures her .hus-
band keenly in THE Marriage of Will
liam Ashe.' At this matinee she gave
passage from that drama wherein
the young wife wildly repulseS the low
er whom her sordid mother has set
upon her and as frantically throws her
self into the arms of her returning hus-
band. Cyril Keightly and John w.
Dean made American debuts as the ri
val lovers, and the brevity of their in
PRODUCTION prevented an estimate of
their value as importat;ons; but Fanny
demonstrated her facility as a five feet
two and hundred pounds ten section
of Bernhardt
And that wasn't easy on stage
crowded with the confusion of six new
productions, each with its own director,
not to mention five individual perform
ers trying TO keep the words of speeches
or reeitations in their heads. Julia Opp
Faversham and William Hodge were
coming familiar yet elusive rhymes of
Kipling Riley and Ella Wheeler Will
cox. Crane. Gillette and Hopper had
their humor in their mouths for flippant
delivery. And while one of their turns
after another relieved their perturbed
souls, Billie Burke kept apart with Vic
tor Herbert and hummed a song that
Edward Peple and he had rhymed and
tuned for her. Although Billie is star
ring here famOusly in high comedy.
suppose she wished to show US that she
could get away with sentimental bal
lad. 1t was Billie who, when Edna
May refused in London TO sing a ditty
about girl lin her little cause" took
a gentle whack at it and knocked out
success: so that when Edna came here
with the play she made much of the
song she had rejected. Billie is a mod
ern Lolita (who lately came on from
Boston to see herself as others saw, her
many years ago.. and singing isn't her
best facility, any more than it was
LOtta'S: but Such a comely creature is
she that although Loves Oracle" was
weak stuff, she made it look good.
Constance Collier. an English stran-
ger except for the little while she has
acted in New York, paired with Oliver
Doud Byrons son. Arthur, to introduce
Companions Of the Road by Haidee
Wright This was qualification in
literature and dramatic art; yet. like
the other brevties in the program
(which, by the way. timed them in plain
figures at twenty TO never more than
thirty minutes). was ephemeral. There
is no demand in this country for one
act pieces out of vaudeville. In London
they are used to precede the longer yet
scarcely long enough principal plays;
but when those main pieces are brought
over here, and unless they are impossi-
bly, short TO afford an evenings enter
tainment the predatory playlets are
left behind. That made the Actors
home matinee unique with it's bill of
'brevit:es not inconsequential
Arthur Byron was an artist footing
his way into London; and. no matter
for the inference that he was an Eng
lishman, his accent proved him an
American; and none the worse for that.