The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-12-20
THEA 7RICAL LETTER
 OF FRANKLIN FILES

-~---~-~-a g dozen years. was leader of rniera- tory stock company. The only schools lett to the dramatic aspirant, he de- clared were these touring repertory parties; and he thanked the gracious goodness that his son had got into that only road to dramatic greatness It didn't occur to him that inherited obesity might have disqualified his heir for 8 tragedian.. Then the sons arrival was announced. Now we'd see what the father might have been put for heshinessS
 But when Frank Mcintyre. as TO- tund as Wise and easily made up to resemble him closely, came in wearing the jaunty air and imoudent clothes of teh-to-thirt comedian in a village parade, the pride of the father was humbled on the dust. Why those Ia mentations the son wanted to know, instead of hollelujah. He had just signed to be starred in a musciaI farce with name something like Bully Barley" He looked like the best re. suits of the breakfast food mentioned. the cereal company stood for the cost of the production and it just couldn't help hitting sem for a knock out. And. anyway. ought dad to blame bub for taking on the family fat7 Why not be jolly about 1t? The old man was inconsolable. though, until told that he had namesaket grandson. who re- sembled hls slim mother. and so might grow up physically fit to beaa trage- dian. That sketch wasrm made by Wise and Mcintyre. along with Morton and Pike, mixediy glad and sad finish. to the Actors F. II. home matinee.
 
 No New York newspaper fave more than nR t.rga- grs .aa... tion of this affair; for usually charity matinees are made up of selections from current plays; but for thls one the only transfer was that of a chorus from a muscfai farce to open up the stage handsomely with the finish of an overture by the orchestra. The okly play ever performed hre before was "A Happy Pair" the cornedietta by They're smith in which a buIIdozed young wife brings Her husband arouna to agreeable connubiality by out | doing him in domineering. Lily Lang try once said to me, on coming from the stage after a performance of fl: T don't know that It's so in America. but in England that little play has made more marriages than any big play ever written
 But it's theme of contest for supre- macy between a husband and a wite, !"
 
 example of wedlock." ga
 "Oh,' said she, ''that doesn't count. "A Happy Pair" is the first choice of amateurs in my country, from Scot lands top to Wales bottom with Ire- land on the side; and during the re. hearsals net only the amateurs cast for the mimic bride and bridegroom. but others who see the goings on. have a plenty of chance and temptation to sateru AAr A1-
 So those Americans who are aghast at race suicide may we'll incite anna teurs to perform A Happy Pair.,. This afternoon it was given by Blanche 6 Bates and Charles Richman.
 John Drew had studied a new role in "A Short Exposure" hitherto un- acted Anstey farce, as faithfully as though there had been a run. ahead for 1t; and So had Tom Wise; but not so had DreW's niece, Georgia Drew Mendum. Do you know what 1t Is that's hardest to get pat and glib 2 Why. the names of course; and when Georgia had to be reminded audibly by her Uncle Jack Chats what Drews' numerous nieces and nephews call him, believe) that he was Mortimer Dolphin, also that she was Iris Waverly, the audience got a lot of fun out of it. This audience was big, by the way, and mighty fine with it's preponderanee of modish women. It paid $5,000 into the Actors Home fund. too, and got it's full moneys worth. William H. Crane, the thank you-kindly man on the program, told the people that not to them, after all, but to the players who had taken on themselves new tasks, was the gratitude due; and William Gillette, who came out as an unpromised sight and gave a humorous address-alleged and actual-bore still harder upon that point of not the (welI-repaid auditors, but the gratis working actors. being the real donors of the occasion. An other extra trading stamp gift with the purchase was the laughter of a speech by De Wolf Hopper-"without an old wheeze in It," as an English actor remarked.
 Back up to "A Short Exposure, !" which was like this. John Drew had been drven from his chosen career of a poet by Tom Wise as a savagely caustIc critic. Neither knew the other. as each had written over a pen name. Drew became a photographer to earn a living and Wise went to his gallery to have a portrait made without pay, because he was a celebrity. In ex- ,plaining his efrand he disclosed his Identity. Would the ruined poet make a picture of the critic who had ruined him? We'll, wouldn't he? First. though, he made him sign an agreement that the maker of the prints might sell them wherever he chose. Then he locked the studios doors, drew a big. long pistol on his amazed customer. and compelled him to put on wo- mans enormous hat, straddle hobby horse like a roughrider, and suck his thumb while attltudinizing for the camera a--,-. %