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

half hundred girls in Brittany costumes
look like demure Quarkeresses. The
only indecorOus outbreak is an Apache
waltz-nOt an Indian dance. but the
now well known gyrating hug Of Paris
depravity. For that exploit, girl
doffs her modest peasant frock, dons a
black >decollette gown that threatens to
fall away altogether from the contrast
ing white of her body If that were
New York's first Apache dance, the
spectators would go wild, and as it is
they applaud it more than any other
thing i'll the whole show.
That would be a pity, but for the
quieter general enjoyment of the many
acted songs. London beats New York
at that sort of thing. As a play, THE
Belle of Brittany" is of no consequence
at all; but at every feasible point the
action passes into a tuneful and illus
trative ballad. The girls are barking
dogs with hands paving, butting goats
with heads colliding, racing horses with
feet prancing and warbling birds with
fluttering arms for wings; and with the
charm Of femininity to help out, these
pleasantries are very agreeable. All this
is done in the theatre once Augustin
Days. and in such superiority to his
ventures in musical farce that I don't
doubt the reality Of our progress in
stagecraft.
Frank Daniels has been permitted to
do as he pleases with the role of q bank
rupt Paris marquis who, to replenish
his fortune, undertakes to marry his
son to the heiress belle OF Brittany. He
is merely and altogether the American
Jester that he was when Charley Hoyt
took him from negro minstrelsy to be
ill rsr ID L.
revered his right hand because it had
been clasped by John L. Sullivan, the
champion slugger. He makes his songs
count for levity by giving a travesty
of his inability to sing them. And his
between acts speech of meaningless
long words is a feature, with his mute
appeals to a friend in the wing to pro-
tect him against an enemy aloft in the
flies. OF course, he doesn't gee with
the English play, or those English
players in the company; but that
doesn't seem to matter. His own oddly
wins out.
Is the stage to be uplifted from the
very bottom or dropped lower? Is what
we now call burlesque, and used to
know as female minstrelsy, to be flung
upward with a Partisan kick, or
stamped downward? The sort of show
formerly classed as burlesque, and run
ming along in rhymes and puns, devel-
oped into musical farce, with the old
element of travesty displaced by vaude-
vile interpretations and spectacular ex-
travaganza. Meanwhile, female min
strelsy eliminated its first part, in which
the only men were the jokers at the
semicircle's ends, while a stately woman
was the interlocutOr at the middle and
the rest of the row was young women
with skirts so short as to hardly cover
the seats, without hiding the legs of
either chairs or persons. In place of
the discarded minstrelsy. the programs
give a musical farce in rough and
usually tough imitation of those in the
aires Of the first-class. There you have
the evolution of the present burlesque
show as given this season by eighty-one
touring companies.
DeViltry In BurIesque.
How about the new Partisan prom
Use Of deviltry in burlesque? 1t comes
of Ziegfeldian drafts from the stage re-
views in Paris, first for his Anna Held
shows, later extending to others, and
consisting mainly of girls frisky at one
or another of the wicked resorts sup
ported by tourists in the French cap
ital. 1t was possible for me to see
within a single week performances en-
titled Gay PARISHES" Girls of the
Moulin Rouge" Queens of the Jardin
de Paris Girls of the Boulevardes,
Gay Grisettes," Coy Cocottes,"
French Folliettes" and Partisan Wild
ows." In some cases those names be-
longed to the companies, and in others
to the plays. My hard job covered the
afternoons and evenings of four days,
and took me to the ends of Bronx and
Queens boroughs; for I went only to
burlesques branded French, as I was