The Salt Lake herald-Republican. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1909-1918, 1909-11-14

finding out whether the labels meant
anything.
In the first of these eight shows,
scene in a notorious Paris restaurant
had one truth to its credit-although
not by artistic design; for some singing
and dancing cocottes, as chic as the
genuine, were roIlicking with American
visitors; but they were not tourists, but
the usual Yankee zap, German gawk,
Irish idiot and Jewish jay Of our bur-
lesque. There was a variant dude,
though, for after his effeminacy had
been used in the WORKOUT ways that
tickle the multitude, but sicken me, he
suddenly developed the courage and
muscle to do up his tormentOrs. The
audience was struck dumb by that de-
parture from burlesque standards, and
for a while watched it in ominous 81
lence; but when the strengthened weak
ling from New York knocked out a gi-
gantic French cop, parquet and gallery
united in loud acclaim.
A real improvement in burlesque is
wrought by a Tansfer-thrOugh pur-
chase, not theft-Of scenes that have
served their purpose in musical farces.
This secondhand material is much bet
ter than the stuff made originally in
the cIeverness of the presentation. APP
parently, the show girls Of burlesque
are much more apt than the chump
comedians who accompany them, and
need nothing else than expert direction
to be comparable with the sirens who
are petted in Broadway.
For example the Partisan Widows"
start out with a stageful of young wom-
en- in black gloves and black stockings
as long as the limbs they encase. Those
| lengths of jet arms and legs presum-
ably stand for the widowhood men,
toned in the bills; while the figures as
| a whole are reminiscent of the times
when female minstrels were >nicknamed
chairwarmers, but were inert enough to
engender frost rather than heat. They
go through the spell of first disclosure
with all the inanimate stolidity of
| AmaZons in the marches of 1.-The Black
Crook" am discouraged and 1 browse
Further along in Fun in a Department
Store" though, I am wakened by some
| thing familiar. It is a scene from 1.-THE
| Girl Behind the Counter" one of the
expensive and prosperous musical farces
of the season before last in Broadway.
Some Real Acting.
Do my eyes and ears deceive me? Is
it a delusion? Here are three Of the i'm
pudently supine creatures Of the coarse
opening stunts doing real acting as the
shoppers who have trouble with an am
ateur salesman at the soda fountain.
| Did you see ii when Lew Fields was
that blundereT? and Connie Ediss, a
! celebrity from London, was the woman
/ who, being dosed with whisky in the
carbonic f1zz, had an hysterical jag and
went off screaming? Well, here are the
pair of mOdish shoppers who match by
colored ribbons the syrups they want,
and do 1t with the air Of the original
NrT.r Nr.1A ~E AT---N IL
braced myself for a slump when the
Connie Ediss of the incident strikes into
action. But the fun doesn't go to
pieces. The bill says 1t is a Mae Frank
who holds it up remarkably like Connie.
| Some one was sent by the sellers of the
material to teach her and the two others
howe to use it; and the superior ductility
Of woman does the rest; for the Lew
Fields substitute at the soda fountain
is dull and heavy as lead.
Managers of burlesque evidently be-
lieve that their public demands indie
cency. In. this department store, a wo-
man is stood on a stool to be measured
for corset by two men whose Jokes are
vile; and to rustic in quest of chi'ny
figgers is shown, by pulling aside the
curtain of an alcove, a succession of
women posed in imitation of naked
statuary, but with no Illusion of art.
In all the eight shows, however, 1 find
no more foulness than a single one
| might have contained ten or fifteen
years ago. While the promise of things
from Paris is not kept with neat French
| deviltries, no more is it realized in a
French access of nastiness. In short, If
a clergyman were to make his first visit
now to burlesque show, he would be
shocked by its coarse sensuality; and
an art critic would be paralyzed by the
crudity; yet, all the same, I compare
its average with the former muck, and
get an impression of tolerable merit
and no atrocious immortality.
FRANKLIN FYLES