The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-09-06


 1t and a smiling cocotte behind It. thus producing a bouievarde scene complete. The vision is but momentary at the end of each verse. In a wink of the calcium the gay cafe changes back to the dull camp. The girls have skipped of. But what has become of the tables and canopies? Why. rods reaching up from the girls back have carried the canopies, and they have made the tables by holding their skirts out dat, with the glassware fastened on.
 Reginald de Roven. Adele Ritchie and Glen Macdonough were early in their careers fifteen years ago. De Koven wrote the score and Macdonough the libretto of "The Algerians' for Adele. Of course. Victor Herbert's music in the present play besring the same name has no trace of De Koven's, and to the best of my recollection. Macdonoughs writing is substantially fresh. His story Is that the sultana of an Alge- poem of love that she resolves to seat its author on her throne as royal consort; and so she sends out agents to bring him to her. As he is an offi- cer in French invading army, he is impelled for diplomatic reasons to hide his identity; but at sight of her loveliness he owns up to who he Is and
 
 there are digressions and confusions so witless and futile as to place the lib- retto among the worst in the long re- cord of bad ones. And the enterprise was imperilied further. in the opening performance, but two able but unprepar- cd comedians, who had taken the place of two withdrawn. I suppose by this time those two unready actors have got together with their companion in comic triangle: but at the outset their ineffecuality showed how stage fool- cry needs to be as carefully prepared and practiced as a serious matter.
 So the fate of the gorgeous "Alge- ria" depended on Victor Herbert's mu- sic and its singers. The score is of high degree, with very operatic spells. yet providing popular melodies for the songs. The singers are led by an Ida Brooks Hunt, whom Broadway has new CT heard of. but whose voice has been cultured thoroughly somewhere else; and the set of vocalists contains only four names that mean merit here. l like that. Old favorites are apt to get, with me, the contempt that fa- miiiariy breeds. Mir. Herbert was in the conductors chair at the opening. and these new good singers had so many encores that the play didn't end till near midnight.
 @The Girls of Gottenberg.'
 Laughter is loud and plenty at the other musical play, "The Girls of Got tenberg," although as a beauty show to admire 1t is not less pictorial than the one already described. This Is an importation from London, where 1t lived a year lively, and where its dis respectful references to the German Emperor might easily have made the English King interfere for his neph- ew's sake; as "The Mikado"y has been proh hibited in London lately because it made sport of the Mikado of Japan The play sets forth that the town of Gottenberg lacks 6 desirable grade of young men for, its girls, who petition the Emperor to send some army of flcers to solace them. Now. the Blue Hussars have beenfor months in near by Rottenberg. lonesomely devoid of young femininity: yet Ills Majesty de- tails the Red Hussars instead to the coveted special service In Gottenberg. The jocose use made of Kaiser Will helms dignity has kept the play out of the German Empire, but in New York we may, in foolery. see some of his Princes figuring in the fight for girls. A barber from Berlin comes to the berg with the Rotten" name, to be a valet to princely lieutenant of the Blues; and this tricky fellow steals the Emperor's order from its bearer substitutes a bogus one, and so the Blues get to the berg called Gotten" in place of the Reds. Out of that complication the fun comes Ru- riously, as the Blues know the hoax will be discovered within a day or two, and they will have to give up the girls to the Reds. That is good scheme for a military extravaganza, in which harsh martial commands soften unto songs and the tactics of the drill frolic into dances.
 New York gets "The Girls of Got tenberg" in its London condition. The whole outfit, human and material, has been transferred. The chief comedian. James Blakely. is the barber who, pro- notes himself from a lleutenant's valet to be a Kings envoy, and struts in gay uniform, quaffs official champagne, flirts with many girls and especially mashes a burgomaster's daughter. It is such a part as our Francis Wilson, Frank Daniels or Richard Carle would do well with. newly introduced &C., tress is Gertie Millar, a pleasant blend of piquancy and dignity. As a beauty show this is being marked O. K. by the connoisseurs and its fresh band of dancing girls are vivactous variants from the familiar in their graceful caners. To some New Workers, with eyes tough ened by the summers sights of bare Salomes, the autumn1s garDed arrays of dancers may look like Vassar colleRians at gymnasium work; but to the rest of us they are a welcome re- lief, The Salomes are dancing yet, but the police department, now that the season of them is at its end, gravely mort whether it is true that these wo- men strip themselves for public view.