The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-12-06
rhey Deserved It.

According to James J. McCloskey. old time actor and playwright. there aren'' many actors nowadays. says The Ne" York Herald. Also the New Theatre up in Central Park West Is really quite a nice little theatre. In addition, MT E. H. Southern seems to be wei meaning young man who should nave been born seventy years ago, when the conditions were such that he might have learned how to act. And all though as it Is he and Miss Marlowe don't do. so very badly. still you all should have dropped around to the old Broadway Theatre at Broadway and Worth street in 1859 and seen MT. Me- Closkey and Edward E. Eddy and Mime PonisI and Harry Pierson and Alice Grey and few others do Antony and Cleopatra" as 1t ought to be done and as--take 1t from Mr. McCloskey--it VIII never be done again.
 Mir. McCioskey has been of the stage now for thirty years, but speaks with the authority of one who has acted with Booth. Mccullough. Forrest and 2 host of other notabies. He is eighty three years old and lives entirely sur rounded by antique piaybills in a fine house in Eastern Parkway. Brooklyn He acted in California, Australia Hawaii and New Zealand ten years be. lore I0C CIVIL war bNOh0 V9ts e@A&u A~ now attends the theatre regularly, but as he says and signs. with an enthu- siasm abated by time.
 Anyway. he played with Eddy and Mme Ponisi in Antony and Cleopatra" in 1859 and has views on the play as it has been revived.
 T went up to this New Theatre the opening night" he said yesterday. and between the acts I wept a little. l had expected that at least the ideal theatre was actually with us. but fills the part.
 Tt was just a piece of Broadway moved little ways up town. The au- dience was more clothes than appre- citation. Enthusiasm was an absentee and the acting was tame. In addition. the piece wasn't put on as If there was tons of money behind 1t, like they say there Is ,and--well. couldn't get a thrill out of it. went home feeling as though I'd seen a proper little per fofmance given in Harlem nat where the performers were afraid they'd wake the peoples babies in the nat down stairs, and as l rode back to Brooklyn I couldn't help but think how Ed Eddy would have made the rafters hum and how Mime. Ponisi would have made those people stand on their chairs
 When We played Antony and Cleo patra" at the old Broadway we had stage effects that were stage effects. In the first place we used a version of the play that made the action fast and brought out all the drama there was in the piece. and every man and woman in the cast was a star, If do say 1t myself But more than anything else we had the thing put on the stage the way 1t wants to be.
 "You ought to have seen our Nile scene with Cleopatrras barge moving down the river, the slaves flaming her and the Pyramids rearing their ghostly bulk along the shore. There was real ism for you! There was suggestion romance. poetry, everything that peo- pie expect for their money and don't get any more. Why, before we pre- scented that piece we rehearsal 1t four months. That. in a time when actors used to get sore If they were asked to rehearse anything more than twice be- fore an opening performance! And they were entitled to be sore. too. Two rehearsals were plenty for any actor that knew his business those days Those were the days of versatility and of versatilitarians.
 MournH for old School.
 What's become of that school now Dead as A door nail. defunct as the Cardiff Giant, extinct as the dodo, fire. suscitab ble as John Browns body. Show me the actor of today who could fall down stairs or off his horse In the af'
 ternoon and get out and do his little Hamlet that same night! Could little 'winie' Faversham do it? Could oui young James K. Hackett do 1t? CoulC our friend, E. H. Sothern, do it7 No not one of them could do 1t. But dit 1t and everybody that worked in ms | time had to do 1t. or get out of tho | profession.
 ''Iet me tell you, In case you thinl | that about falling down stairs or off { | horse Is a joke. At the time we wer,
 rehearsing Antony and Cleopatra
 was playing Dick Turpin in 'Rookwood | in the same old Broadway. In the frs
 act. a few minutes after I came oh had to fight three villains all the wa. | down a flight of stairs at right stage kill all three before l got halfwa, l down. and then fall the rest of th way down. weak from loss of blood | And 1t had to be a natural fall too, O l I'd have got mine from the gallery am | pit. In the last act of the same pla!
 my horse Black Bess dies of a broker heart and, as she collapsed at the foot | hghts-she was trained horse tha did 1t as natural as ufe-I had to fal
 off her and take my chances of he
 rolling on me. l used to get hundre | a week for the part--sixty for the abIl ity to act 1t and forty for risking m