The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1909-08-08

Ihe lZ-cent program learned that Aiaui
Allan had closed her evening engage
ment and would appear this week one
afternoon only I swOre TO see her and
did at that special; but that afternoon
the price was raised 10 that OF an even
ing. Thus the operator of the game
won from me S12.66-fOr l took COM
panion at each visit Would American
audiences let a manager get away with
their money on a deal like that? It IS
a common practice in London, though,
and if ever you come here, ask the deal
er in the box what cards are being held
out in the shuttle. / wouldn't have
minded paying high 70 learn, IN three
lessons, why a parquet chair in Lon
don music hall may well be called a
stall" If only they had put wires UNI
der the seats for our hats, and h2ont
crowded our knees with a shelf for
glasses.
Maud Allan, seeing Isadora Duncan's
Grecian dances in bare limbs, initiated
them here with all of their original grace
Of audacity, and has become a theat-
rical celebrity. To describe Maud's eX-
plot of artistic nudity however. would
repeat what you have read about lisa
dOrds.
A quarter of an hour of pictorial dane
ing at one of the halls attempted TO be
American I'm stuff as well as style; and
81 was so very sightly-so much finer
stagefuls than we ever get I'm our vaude-
ville-that I never minded its condcns-
alton of three miles of Broadway into
one scene. with the Times building from
Times square facing the Herald build
ing from Herald square, while the
statue of Washington from Union
square gazed across the way as one of
90 "a
were crossing directly to the Brooklyn
bridge at City Hall square. The title,
ION the Square" was no more al odds
with the map of New York than the
dances by red Indians, yellow Chinese
and black Africans were with Broad
way customs However, those things
may have been especially rearranged for
rapid exhibition TO the English tour
fists who alighted among them from
transatlantic balloon.
Therein were the first phalanXes I
have yet seen in either London or Paris,
recruited and drilled in the American
method of uniformity in sizes, shapes
and motions. Nearly all the dancing
at the halls Is in the way of orthodox
grand ballets. At this same Alhambra
the legend of Venus and Cupid was en-
acted with a small premier of the tip
toe kind for the god of love, big wom-
an Cor the goddess and as many trained
cOryphees as the stage would mold. It
was fine art; and the people appreciate
IT. but IL would be rulnOus to an Amer
lean vaudeville house through its cost
and lack of popularity.
The same dancers, though were util-
lied for Americans in ON the Square"
with the Cupid and Venus out and a
Topsy in. We have negroes on our va
riety stage in plenty, but always sep
arate from white performers. Haven't
you observed how, when a white actress
uses black boys, she keeps alOOf, as
though i'm fear of contamination? Yet
here was a real negress. billed as Top
sy, paired off in several dances with a
principal white girl and mixed init
mately with the others in the action
Nor was the audience slow TO applaud
her first-rate darkeyisms.
American visitors to English music
halls come across specialists whom he
ma seen I'm vaudeville at home. The
exchange Of talent between all parts
of the old world and North America is
general A difference to be noted abroad
Is that, while big ballet spectaCies are |
usual, our practice of transferring very
costly dramatic actors to vaudeville in
short plays is almost unknown. In the
undergrade Of halls, especially those in
the outskirting sections, performers di-
vide the afternoon or evening among
three houses; and as a whole show in
these cheap places is given three times
daily-at ., ana 10 o'clock-an artist
may give his act" nine times for the
three meals he gets. Usually he puts on
his makeup soon after noon, and if il
is elaborate, doesn't take it off till past
midnight. If he is a fellow of small /
account he is likely TO lounge in the