The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-12-12

snavlnGE To which, need aod, ehe witty hero repiied: Court plaster"
 Don't ask mo some of the merry jests that interrupt what might be ac- ton in The Lottery Man" The sou-
 venirs of ones childhood are
 sacred Suf1ce it that in place of the members 70 many jests that she has
 time to involve her lottery man only in
 betrothai to . comic supplement
 spinister and then extricate him with
 out explanation but in time for an
 early curtain" Of the spinister---
 need ISnote ?--some one says: If you
 marry her you can't take her out---
 people will think you's paying an
 election bet"
 The laughter that greeted the farce
 was due largely to Helen LowelPs droli impersonatfon of the spinister,
 hired companion to the sort of brain- less butterfly who would take physi- cal culture and eat bon-bons while she did 1t. By innumerable touches Of
 ludicrous humanity. of that humor that is akin to pathos, Miss Lowell made the forlorn. elderly winner of the lot- tery. man a figure of delight. But then. If you saw Miss Lowell as Miss Hazy in Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch'' you can fancy how amusing she was better than words can possibly sug- gest.
 Never in my time have artistic things been so sensuous as now on the stage. New York doesn't cele- brate the winter holidays in the Lon- don way. with ah extravaganza con- taining a remnant of the harlequin-
 ade. and calling the show panto-
 mime; but for fierce sort of fad this year we take to pantomimic dancing. Women with silent tongues. but all
 their visibility active. give pictorial aspects to all sorts of sights. from
 grand opera to vaudeville. Why. that oper9tic danseuse. Dazie, once leai- CT of Wagnerian sprites, is showing
 in q variety sketch how a girl may
 be gracefully graphic when in. wild
 love; the symmetrical beauty of An
 nette Keilerman. the Diving Venus, is
 on tank view in a maze of mirrors;
 the classical Isabella Duncan and
 Ruth St. Denis hold rival stages with
 exhibitions of art in nudity at mod
 ish houses; and all along the down
 grade through burlesque to a Danc-
 ing Dare-Devil at a dime museum,
 women are making displays of either
 admirable Or disgraceful grace. just as
 the spectator chooses to rate 1t.
 What do you say to a dancing of
 Ave Maria" on g theatrical stage?
 Not word of that most sacred pray
 CT of the Catholic Church is spoken,
 but the tender music of the familiar
 Bach Gounod seem to utter tho appeal
 to the Mother of Christ If you shut your eyes and listen. you fancy that an angelic chorus is singing 1t in
 wordless melody. For it is played ex- quisitely. with harps and lutes pre- dominant. by the orchestra that us.
 ually serves grand opera. But if you stay open-eyed, you see twenty-ons women expressing the Ave Maria prayer by pantomimic action. The twenty-f1rst woman is Loie Fuller. de- wiser of this danced religious rite, and she calls the twenty her Muses. Now. muses are Grecian.- are they not? And we may well expect Pagans to be heterodox when they pray to the Mother of Christianity.
 With the Bach Gounod music for Ave Maria" in my ears, and the lam guage in my mind keeping pace to the notes. I still am unable to discern appropriate meanings in the physical of Loie and her com panions. Can 1t be that [ am car naily confused? If yes. am no worse than the extremely fashionable people who are gazing at the strange spec tacle. The fact has been no secret that Loie and her Muses would fling I not only bare arms, but bare legs. too. So there they are. with a filmy white Grecian tunfc from shoulders to knees. and their foes in palmer sight than their fngers--as they carry punches of gauge fin their ,,hands for wafture, while their feet are not so much as sandalied. Whether for my stery or for modesty, can't guess which, the stage is kept dim, and against the background of black cloth the women's 1.-the figures, with limbs in undulous agitation, look like silhouettes in motion, but with the contrast of black and white reversed
 The show passes from prayer to play. The Muses become Sylphides, and dis port to the music of various compos- CTS, and they continue to handle it without gloves; also. to foot 1t without stockings. Presumably they are young godessettes gamboling on Olympian heights; but they look like modern school girls in short nighties engaged in a dormitory pillow-hght. They are graceful creatures. but not in the man ner of the trained ballet, either classic on tiptoe or modern In high kicking. Their girlish glee, excited by the mus lC or the masters or melody, IlnIG | vent mostly in running to and fro, or round and round. with uncommonly high knee action and impulsive breaks into leaps and bounds.
 One of them gets bitten by a viper. That comes of dancing barefoot in the 4 grass when the orchestra plays Chop in's "Tarantella." It Is a dreadful thing to happen at this girls picnic frolic. The poisoned godessette has convulsions awfully. Why don't they give her the whiskey antidote for uneventfully sylvan dancing is mono tonous, this tarantella Incident makes the limp spectators stiffen up with in- terest. So the young woman runs madly in a circle. darts here and there in agony. writhes on the ground and finally straightens out on. her back. dead. That breaks mp the barefoot games. The second half of the show | Is different.
 May be Loie has been dead a long | while in your memory; but she is stil1 | the shrewdly alive Yankee that she | was when. many years ago. she in- vented and patented the dance that she called the serpentine. She put on 1 a mass of filmy white fabric that floated as she whirIed She held in | her hands long sticks that extended | the jrapery like wings, and with them | she flung wide the airy stun in an as- spectacular illumination. | The lighting was her own device. She |