The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-02-21
THEA 7RICAL LETTER
 OF FRANKLIN FYLES

vent. she should join the nuns in holy ny"ns; and on hearing a turbulent mob In she street. dashes out to join their wells TOT liberty. equality and fraternity.
 The next ensuing spectacle Is such as we sea 10 think Henry Irving alone could pro- uuce. put which Lawrence Barreft soon equaiied for himself ana Edwin Booth. snu which may now be duplicated without uifficuity if the necessary thousnads of dol lars are provided. The popuiace has sbo,- ished religions. obIiterated God, instituted an era or common sense, and these changes are being celebrated at Nantes. The tri- eoior Is borne at the head 6f procession In front of @ guillotine Julia Mariowe. fat .enea out or the slimness of her girlish Par .henia. yet not yisibly as much older as the years since that debut might show. Is enthroned high and handsome in a chariot as the goddess of reason Behind her come carss containing aristocrats to be beheaded
 me puoic square Is crowded by, frenzied Fe'olutionisss-men. women and children slnsing and dancing. shrieking and blowing trumpets. In giee at the blood that is to How. The din Is siIenced to let the god oess De heard. She has from the outset oeeh . Fluent speaker with blank verse written with one poetic to about a hundred prosily worded by Mary Johnston
 1uiia Marlowe is an able declaimer. Her Voice mas been toned to meiiiferous elo-
 ~~NeSiS'o hhC tO near II. 50 QOe8 sne. Her spells of loquacity prolons this play past eleven till nearly twelve. Yet me verbosttv didn't seem to bore many ot the first-night people. And 1t was broken by human interest in this episode of mob rule. Supreme power for the day has heen voted to the Goddess of Reason. Upon her whim or caprice the life or death of an aristocrat may depend. She sees the mob seize the Baron Rene de vardes. whom she loves, and impulsively she sets him free That's like a woman. Soon afterward she observes that the Mamseile de Chateau Gui. who as she thinks is Rene's sweetheart, has joined him in seeming intimacy. Shall she save that mam'selie's head, too. Nay, no; <; for she stiil is womanly-even femininelS jeaious--and so she denounces her rival as high-born girl qualified for the guillotine. And to make a complete and comprehensive job Of It, she includes Rene in her wild re- yulsion of feeling and orders both to the guiilotips, That strikes the sudjence as carrying piqus bit too far: aud at the fall Of the curtain the demandssifor the actress's well-known bob-outs, bob-bows and bob-ins. through a cleft in the draperies at the stages centre,. with the spotlight on her. were fewer than at the next acts end.
 That next act Is the fourth. It surpasses the third for q massing of people, every with a separate role of pantomime ana ejaculation, yet all worked into rousing general effect of spontaneous commotion. Who says that stagecraft hasn't come to pass of great accomplishments? Let him come and see the trial of the Goddess of Reason. She has endeavored to save Rene for she has learned that he loves her truly and only: but her shifts of purpose have convinced the revolutionists that she is an aristocrat at heart. She Is put on trial in church utilized as a prison and court. Here We have repetition of the frequently presented and variously treated theatric scene of nobility's behavior in the shadow of the guiilotine. Among the hor- TOTS of this time are, the screams of Julia's supposed rival as she is dragged to the death cart.
 The trial of the deposed Goddess ensues. It would have been a stage marvel a third of a century ago. Now New Workers take 1t as satisfactory but not amazing The assemblage, excited by her behavior. be- comes a maddened mob. Julia. her lover being condemned. furiously tears off the tri-color and denounces all that 1t repre- sents. For that she is doomed to be drowned in the river with Rene; and at the goodbye sight of her the embracing pair plunge into grave of water.
 Good girls from hefe, bad girls from three all sorts of girls from everywhere are abund- ant In the stage shows; and, although girls don't give the title to Havana" as they do to many plays. they dominate its action. Eight of them are young and small exam. ples of the sEnglish hlonde sent to Cuba by a newspaper as winners of beauty prizes. Their contrast to the older and heavier brunettes of the Afro-Spanish island is to their distinct advantage. Their winning luck comes. though, from song in which Leslie Stuart has done as well for them in whim, rhyme and tune as he did for the first famous and later notorious double sextette in "Florodora." That halt dozen
 .e ,eauties of the tall and straight, cool and calm Du Maurier-Gibson type and to each a suitably good-looking fellow was as signed as a mate in the sauntering flirta- tion.
 The new giggle- -girlies have but one chap to the eight of them. guess the impress sion sought Is that they are too young to desire whole man apiece. The personal conductor of their tour a drawler from the Strand-a caricature by Erneset Lambert, has the masculine solo of this song :. but he is of small account. as 1t is the chorus that is consequential, He patters some thing or other about his bringing of the English maidens to Cuba. Then they glide in. oh-mouthed and wonder-eyed, discover the audience and start the refrain with. Hello. people," and with a shy yet roguish flutter of the little hands. add People, hel- lo!" The girls have been selected for a uniformity Of childlike prettiness, drilled to a nicety of bashful charm and in the few days since New York first heard Hello. pcOpAS-pcOpics -heiIOs US WOTuS anu uOt0S have been spread through the town.
 .Makers of modern extravaganzas strain
 heir brains for new ways of exploiting girls, The octette of young English maidens in Havana" may be granddaughters of Lydia Thompson's original British blondes. Any way. they come over from London with a better training than graduates of New York chorus and ballet schools possess A second novelty for them Is teIephonic. They pick up transmitters at eight different places
 In the scene. the wires lead to one man and to him they transmit roKuish messages. On the opening night the man was Lambert but the program said he would be James T. Powers: and on the ensuing night he really was Powers. To whom 1t belonged by a star comedians right of seizure. Maybe Powers shied at newspaper censure of a grab. Another surmise Is that. overloaded with difficult things to do. he frightened his cargo sy tkrowing that one ovsr- board.
 Anyway, cit was Lambert. who. in the in itial performance. gathered to his ears the eight girls telephone wires. listened to their hellos Of love. responded fondly and drove them. with the wires for reins like an eight-in-hand team of frisky colts.
 round and round the scene Of course. you have seen the petted pony ballet' in h..