The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-03-15
Broadway Being Tried With Mediocre Plays.

New York, March lS-Makers of
plays with songs, dances and antics for
the half-priee theatres are like sheep
in following a heIlwether over a Ora
matte wall George NJ Cohan's latest
several shows have had plots that might
nave come from Kraemer or Blaney for
their crimes Of larceny up to murder.
yet are replete with vaudeville sorts of
fooiery, and QUILTED fully with chorus
ballet girls. AT first il didn't seem 10
me that the inharmonious elements
could be mixed to the public's liking
nut was mistaken; and as COhan has
no patent on the new combination, his
original model is being copied The
newest of these initiative conglomer-
ates is THE Flower of the Ranch" It's
serious structure is a cowboy and In
dian drama of California, with a lost,
found, stolen again and finally recoV-
cred land claim; an innocent young man
threatened with lynching as a cattle
thief; VilleinOus sheriff with a greaser
FOR an assistant: and an Indian chief
on the trail of his daughters white de-
spoler. Next time / see a composite
OF this sort, / shall time the various
parts. AS to this one. my best guess is
that the melodramatic spells make up
one-quarter of the whole show. The au-
dience that L saw was of a midding
grade, and was half-thrilled, half-tick-
led, by the gun play and knife matches,
as is usual at performances of out
right melodrama in New York. The
thorough enjoyment, though, was dur
ing the merrily nonsensical and prettily
sensuots three-quarters of the evening.
X x X
Could the principal girl i'm THE
Flower of the Ranch" be other than our
old young friend, Bret Harte's Miss.
the ward and pet of a community of
settlers? AS the actress of Little Flow
er is Mabel Barrison, and as the writer
of the play, music and all, is her hus-
band, John +. Howard. that human
flower buds. blossoms and full-blOoms
all over the stage. If Mabel were
barely sixteen, as Little Flower is de-
clared to be-and still growing so fast
that sic can't keep her knees under her
petticoats-the Gerry society would feel
bound TO rescue her as an oVerworked
child. She Is the cOmpany's one and
only prima donna and sOubrette, pre-
miere danseuse and ingenue; and she
has so much talent and vim in drOllery
that she gets tired without getting tire
some Howard enaets the he .. and
does all the male sentimental singing;
but he toierates a leading comedian in
Ike Oliver; so Mabel plays to two OPP
posites," as stage folks put it-Joe in
the pathos and Ike in the fun.
The maker of THE Flower of the
Ranch" has endeaVOred, first of all. to
exhibit girls in new aspects. There are
fourteen Of them, not counting players
of parts, and all are pretty, but not
one is beautiful. Too much must not be
expected when you pay one dollar, not
two for sparquet chair.
Where's your seat?" rounder
asked.
In the second row / replied.
you've made a mistake" said he
TN back in the sixteenth l get way
down front at a Broadway giTl-shOw.
but way back when it's in Harlem
and I've brought no opera glass along,
either"
Thus admOnished. I gave attention to
the fourteen girls collectively, and didn't
scrutinize their faces separately. The
spectacles thus viewed were satisfac-
tory-to those who forgot to look upon
a stageful of agile. graceful seantily-
clad girls without painful apprehension.
Scarcely five minutes after the curtain
went up, eight OF them dashed into
view as rough riders mounted on them
selves as bucking bronchos; that is,
they were in papieT-mache horses
bodies, which, instead of equine four