Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1909-07-25
TO 7oo7eK 4n0 R4sCUF1o 0E1voe, Los ANGE1KS

fer new definition of hilarity, and the
Allen Curtis company will make its
first local appearance at Fischer's in
musical comedy.
The Auditorium is still dark to the
Muses-more's the pity
A writer in the August Everybody's
notes the fact that the best one-act
plays have found their way into
vaudeville after the high-priced, high
proved houses have genteelly shifted
at them and returned TO their NUT
tons Instances in proof are AT the
Telephone" in which Charles Warner
achieved a popular success; ION the
Threshold" and Doctor Parr," pro-
duced by Frank Keenan,, and Arnold
Days darinEly profitable ventures on
the variety stage in serious drama
which had failed miserably in the big
houses.
The secret seems to be that vaude-
vile audiences are trained to think
more rapidly than attendants on the
Immediately legitimate. Rapid fire
comedy acts and WhirlWind acrobats
have done this great and glorious
thing. The vaudeville crowd is used
to fast work. and its mind is attuned
to the lightning change and the
happy go-lucky epiEram. This is
person, of course-the -poetical,
unprecedented, out of-the-way young
man." whom Gilbert spattered with
salubrious mud in Patience" That
perfectly proper parquet pre-empter
goes TO the fVe-act play, as he goes
to the mountains. or maybe to church,
to be amused, and not to think. He
is quite sure to be affronted, if he
Is reading this article, at being Classed
lower in the intellectual scale than the
gallery boy who is alive to every pris-
matte shift in situation of the One-act
playlet. But the proof of his taste in
pudding is the fact that when a really
great play like THE Servant in the
House" or salvation Nell' comes
along he discreetly stays away. 1t
gets under his skin and stirs up the
animalcule of original reflection.
Rather than get outside of his orbit he
forfeits his box, or yavns through the
first night which society eNacts, while
the every day young man of the song
is sitting in Tapt wonder over how
like the stage scene is to the mysteries
and miracles of his own everyday eX-
istence
1t is a terrible thing how many men
the vaudeville show is driving to
think.
have a good scheme to make stock
actors work. They never do, you know.
Getting up a new play every week is
one great big lark.
When the hero goes off the stage
why should he stop acting until his
next entrance, and stop to puff a
cigarette underneath the sign which
forbids smoking in the dressing rooms q?
Why shouldn't he keep right on act
ing? Half the cast are off the stage
more than half the time, anyway That
means that they are more or less out
Of the spirit of the play. Mr. Mes
tayer is reading lbsen when he ought
to be thinking up new things for Len
nard Wilmore to do in his leisure mo-
ments Mr.. Desmond, as the curate
last week, is Caiolng the stage hands
in the wings when he ought to be
studying theology. over at the Be
lasco Richard Bennett, between foot
ball PUSHES, is posing for a perfectly
paternaI picture with his pretty little
children clinging around his neck.
Great Scott! In 1.-THE College Widow
he's callow collegian just about to
| propose. This is horriblei OF course
Miss Helen Holmes looks just as sweet
while she is reprOVing her maid for
mislaying the grease paint as she does
in the last act. but even so she's out
of character. And l shudder to think
/ of the changes from vice to virtue, and
vice versa, which Robert Leonard goes
through at the Grand between thrills.
| To say nothing of the dabolical facil-
! ity with which Harry Girard directs,
sings, kicks the recalCitrant chorus be-
hind scenes. goes on, plays the merry
merry brgand, comes back, sees if
Wifes hat is on straight, takes "a
settler straight, and Is interviewed on
the wane of the opera comique between
gasps.
These various painful experiences
can all be avoided by the little scheme
which l would maliciously suggest. Let
every playwright devise not only lines
for the public to hear and business for
the public to see, but also both lines
and business which the public are new
er to see but which will keep the un-
derworked stock actor decently busy
in the interims of invisbilty. While
the leading woman is making up let
her storm or purr in character al the
patient creature who is assisting her.
Let the leading man come off after his
temporary discontinue in the second
act, not swearing at the wig maker
but dramatically matchmaking his
stage enemies. Give him lines! Give
him business! Make that big, myste-
rious labyrinth behind the back drop
boil and seethe with action. Then,
when Marmaduke and Ermyngarde re-
turn to the drawing room they will be
refreshed, not as by a cheese sandwich
and a dry Martini, but with the glori-
GUS ardor of incessant Art. No more
ice to be broken up in the first mo-
ments Of the first act by a hair tearing