The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-09-20
THEATRICAL LETTER
 FROM FRANKLIN FILES
(Coati,.ea Iron Page sixtee..)

Peg and Nance, she cures . mush- bratned and slush-hearted young idol ator Of his folly; yet the play is more strikingly paraphrase of David Gar sonating matinee girls idol who gets down from his altar to disillusionize his fond worshipper. Davy, if you'll re- member, Is Inclined to let the young girl give herself to him. but manfully decides to change her admiration to disgust by making her see him in pretended state of maudun drunken ness.
 Virginia plays the same kindly trick on the chap portrayed by Q slim. blonde, youthful A. H. Van Buren. He follows her from the theatre to her home with flowers and adulation. She likes him. but on getting . letter from his simple young sweetheart. pitifully begging her not to be-devil him, re- solves to do what Davy Garrick did. under similar circumstances. It hurts her heart, though: for there she is, 6 dream of loveliness in furry of white dishabille with her sister when he makes his midnight, call. end she knows very we'll she can land him for husband. Resolution she tousles her hair, musses her robe, loaferizes her manner and vows that the one ha stily ordered high-ball is the sixth within the hour. Quickly he quits Aer to re- join his sweetheart Virginia turns to her art for solace. She has been study ing a role. and now she recites one of its speeches in phrenzy of impassion- ed declaration. You can guess without half trying what it is. Lady Gay Spanker's fox-hunt speech in London Assurance" Why. to be sure.
 So 1t seems to me as though. for va. The Idol of the Hour," although in vaudeville. deserve this amount of &C., count. while the Hippodromes annual marvels wait over till the second col umn.
 Now I will brag of the Hippodrome. the biggest theatre on earth. with its | seats for 5000 persons and it's acre of stage on which to spread enter tainment. And there Is its tank of water. too. into which the stages front half may be sunk. You have ready yearly about the things done with that pool. The 1908 surprise Is that the
 water isn't used at all. except in the final apotheosis of victory, when posed
 men and women. whitened like marble statuary. rise dripping wet to glisten | in the electric illumination as a part of colossal tableau.
 Electricity and aerialism are the | subjects of new exploitation. In that same spectacular climax, a hundred girls climb nimbly up a row of lad ders. spread out their red. white and blue draperies, and To! they are out | of sight as individuals, but have form l ed United States flag which is cleo
 trified into blaze of glory.
 That Is what the futurity play of "Ths Battle in the Skies" leads up to. The action is dated ahead to 1850. Electrical zouaves. as programmed. but natty girls for a fact. march into the l first scene sputtering and showering what looks like fire, but can't be hot, | as 1t falls all over them without ig-
 hitting anything save the spectators | enthusiasm. How that makes them effectual fighters isn't explained A positive advance in the science of warfare, though, IS asserted in | fleet | of dirigible balloons. That doesn't
 amaze the people much, as they are
 reading from day to day about achieve-
 ments in aerial navigation. They get l bulge-eyed. however. yet are ready to see. when Yankee airships. equipped
 with marvellous guns that shoot an awful radium sort of destructive sub stance, float over a European city and annihilae 1t utterly. ... Funny? No. no. Tensely engross- ing. And when. a tidal wave having covered the place of the extinct city, the American admirars daughter (who has been held by the enemy as a hos tage) is seen afioat in a poat and | we'll Ella in Uncle Toms Cabin"
 never thrilled rustic beholders of her escape from bloodhounds across tie ice chunks in a river as this girls lift by rope to an aero vessel agitates sophisticated New Workers in The
 Battle In the Skies" Singularity is what gets 'em.
 The Hippodrome exhausted the cap ital of its builders and the ingenuity of its first operators. Could anything more be done with it to lure the null | titude? Most of the resourceful man. agers said no. The Shuberts said yes. They may slump mex, season, but for this season the problem of big enough show Is solved.
 The vast space that is so hard and costly to fill is the making of success. Many attempts to represent baseball | and football in a theatre have been futile. Here the layout for baseball in Sporting Days" gives the pitcher, catcher and striker in nearly the right distances; also, the first, second ard third bases. with a good suggestion of the outfield; and skilled players are employed to enact the close of a col legiate game.
 A grand stand and tiers of bleach
 
 give college yells, sing college songs | and are noisy with college enthusiasm. It has no aspect of fake. Ibsen would admire its liberalism. The illusion is wondrous.
 It is much the same with rowing, | the second sport Illustrative; yet in this the pretty fooleries of extrava- ganza are lapsed into. It takes a full hundred girls to make one line across this stage. That number kneel with their backs to the footlights, lift their skirts above their heads, and join them so hat the suitably colored fla bric represents rippling water.
 A second hundred turn up A line of skirts painted like two long racing boats. Eighteen young men, bare of arms and chests, stand back of the two rows of girss and ply oars as though rowing vigorously. The picture is so quickly made. and so aptIy adjunctive to song and chorus, that 1t all but beats an ensuing and highly spectacu- lar representation of the plays crucial boat race.
 Horseracing Is the third thing In Sporting Days" The plot provides a jockey brtbed by a rascally owner of a stable to throw a race, and a volun- teer rider to win it for an honest own CT. Sweethearts true and swindlers false are in the story, too. and very loud-voiced actors strive to send the particulars to the Hippodrome's distant corners. But it's what's seen that counts; and the crowds of people shown in the paddock. the dozen thoroughbred