The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1909-05-24

KNOWN IN Topeka
Miss Latham, of Mrs. Fiske's
Company, Notable Success.
She Is a Friend Of Annie Marie
Nellis.
TALKS OF HER WORK
First Rejected Because She
Looked Like a Teacher.
Inside Story of the Actors in
the Company.
ALKS OF HER WORK

Miss Hope Latham, who is. making
SO notable a success in Mrs. Fiske s
support, is a friend of Miss Anna Marie
NeHis of Topeka. They met on the Pa
cif1c coast few years ago and are
always running across one another in
their travels and Miss Nellis, who is
to be married next week to Mr.. Albert
Charles Philips of Seattle, will be in
Seattle when Mrs. Fiske's company
goes there for a week, later in the
season. Miss Latham was the fifteenth
actress tried out for the part of Myrtle
OdeH. She wanted to do it, but Mrs
Fiske rejected her at first because she
looked so much like a Boston school
marIfli
Imagine it-you who have seen that
shameless hussy, Myrtle Odell! But as
a matter of fact off the stage Miss
Latham looks not unlike IAN intel
lectual" She wears glasses and there
is nothing about her to suggest that so
clever, we'll bred, and charming young
woman nightly puts on the character,
the looks, the manners. the gestures,
the voice, the laugh, the moral, mental
and physical aspect of Painted Lady
of a gilded palace of sin. Miss Latham
modestly belittles her own credit In
her success 1T is such a good part!"
she exclaims in response to praise, but
the audience go wild about her, and
nobody doubts that Mr.. Sheldon owes
as much to her Interpretation of his
role as Miss Latham does to the role
itself. fat though it undenfably is
Another exceptional young woman in
Mrs. Fiske company is Miss Charlotte
Thompson, who plays the part of Hal
lelujah Maggie, and whose name on
the programs is Mary Madison. Miss
Thompson has never been on the stage
before, and her achievement in Saliva
ltion Nell, in which she is an unferget-
table personality is alf'the more re-
markable because she was not trained
for the stage and never had any idea
of acting. She is a writer OF plays and
fiction and is the author of the
dramatization of Mrs. Deland's Awak-
ening of Helen Richie in which Miss
Margaret Anglin is to appear next
season. She has also made a play OF
Mrs. Virgins Rebecca of Sunnybrook
Farm. which Klaw & Erlanger are to
produce, and has done a number of
and adaptations of foreign
plays for Klaw & Erlanger. Miss
Thompson was discovered" for the
accident. She read Salvation Nell in
manuscript and remarked casually to
Mr.. SheIdon's play agent, who is also
her own, that if she were an actress
she would like the pArts af1iHallelujah
Maggie" Later when much. trouble
was experienced in filling the part and
many actresses had been tried who did
not realize Mrs. Fishes ideal of the
role, the play-agent suggested Miss
Thompson and she suited Mrs. F1ske
so we'll that she was dragged into the
role in spite of her screams. 81 knew
1 didn't have time for it," says Miss
Thompson, "even If I could do it, and
it was so perfectly absurd to suppose
that 1, who had had no stage training
or experience could manage any parti
But Mrs. F'iske insisted and knew 1t
would be an interesting and valuable
experience, and so l consented. And
although I said I would never leave
my work in New York and go on tour,
she still insisted, declaring she wouldn't
go out with the play If I left the COM
pany-wefl, here am But I-oaght-to
be in New York where my own work
calls me and must be back in August
when the rehearsals for Helena begin.
There are some particularly clever,
attractive children IN the Salvation Nell
company. Little Jimmy is perfectly
adorable and the older members of the
company say he. Is fully as lovable and
delightful in reality, as in the charm
name is Antrim Short and his father.
E. W. Short, plays the part of a po-
licemen in the barroom scene. All the
other children in the company are ac-
companied by parents or another rel
alive. The little redheaded East side
girl. who, in the last act is one of the
duet who mimic Myrtle OdeIl, is a boy
a fine looking little chap bearing small
resemblance TO the gutter-snipe of the
play Miss Merle Madden, who plays
one of the minor roles, that of Sal,
SUM girl in the last act, and figures
in the realistic scrap" over who will
tend the baby, is a niece of Mrs Ffske,
and "Old Mary" who; standing on the
edge of the crowd at the Salvation
Army meeting. hymnbook In. hand. is
one of the striking figures, In the pics
ture, is her aunt, Miss Mary Mad
dern, and perhaps the oldest woman
on the stage since the death of Mrs.
Gilbert. Miss Madden is a delightful
woman, frail in health. but with much
mental energy and very interesting in
past and her comments on the stage
of the present She regards Holbrook
Blinn as a much greater actor than
George ArliSS, who she declares, could
she is enthusiastic over Miss Latham
work. Off the stage she looks much
the same as on, wearing plain black
gown, shawl and bonnet like our
grandmothers used to wear. If we were
blessed with that almost obsolete old
fashioned grandma instead of the
modern mama
The properties for Salvation Nell in
Guide a real key of real beer which has
to be carried by the property man since
the prohibition wave made beer an in
accessible article in so many towns the
company visits on its transcontinental
tour. People who have seen Salvation
Nell in other towns will remember that
at the close of the first act when Hal
lelujah Maggie wins out in the strug-
gle with Myrtle Odell for NelPs soul,
Myrtle gives characteristic, cynical
shrug and turning again to the bar
shoots a stream of soda from the
syphon bottle into her highball, as the
curtain descends. But the syphon bot
tie met with an accident Saturday and
although the property man tried to re-
place it he couldn't find one in dry
Topeka and so the incident had to be
omitted for that performance. Another
triumph for the attorney general of
Kansas.