The Salt Lake herald-Republican. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1909-1918, 1910-03-20
THEATRE DOTNGS i'm GOTHAM
BY FRANKLIN FYLES.

! womanliness Of Hattie Williams skins
the surface of the husbands vicious
visit to the dancer and dips instead
into its good humor.
At first the husband is reluctant to
stay longer than to tell her she must
let him alone. while she demands the
agreed tWenty-four hours; but her
liquors get through his stomach to his
head and thence to his heart. He be-
comes the aggressor and she the de-
fender. She has followed him around
the room for kisses. Now he turns
pursuer. Kadenburg closed this mid
die one of three acts with those two
persons left together. Collier has the
woman repulse the alcoholic ardor of
the man.
The star actress doesn't appear in
the first act. Originally, this was chief
| ly a mother-in-law farce of the ia
miliar European pattern, with a SON.
in-law reader than adroit liar, whose
tales were believer by his angel of a
wife and exposed by her devil of a
mother. 1t has been wise to keep Hat
tie Williams waiting till the play is
one-third over, so as to let Zelda Sears
have a free stage for as comical a
mother-in-law as any of the thousand I
have seen. Once in possession, Hattie
is dominant during the second act, in
her roonls, = and holds her place
through the third as a brash intruder
in the husbands home. There is nip
and tuck between the siren and the
mother-in-law for the laughter; and
there, too, the father-in-law gets his
one chance to be worth while. The liar
after night Of town rounding, comes
home with a mig account of having
slept at the Eagle hotel in Schenectady
hof ht4rY Cd nd l,ai
mother-in-law has just read Of it in a
morning journal. The father-in-law
tries by hints to give warning to the
| liar. Next, he b as a match behind
the grim vigaro's hack to give the tip
/ of the fire. No us. Finally, he takes
up call bell and rings fire alarm.
All in vain. The fictionist goes on to
his doom.
Kadenburg wrote the direction that
while the liar speaks the other man
gives frantic signals of warning in
vein," leaving it to the actor to devise
the by-play. The burning of the match
and ringing of the bell are an invention
by Collier; and l doubt il it is plain
enough for a Berlin audience; but not
word Is needed in New York to help
the pantomime. Other of the Collier
isms-Just such quiet, quaint, even
/ faint touches Of wit as come strong
| from his lips and no one can tell why
pass from the comedians into wastage
unpereeived. What makes the differ
ence between the man who tells q fun
ny story funnily and the one who
makes no one smile? An answer would
explain why one actor may get three
to FIVE hundred week and his undeg-
study twenty-five to fifty.
Under another name, THE Girl He
Couldn't Leave Behind Him" was per-
formed in Paris. There they made as
much of the mother-in-law and SON
in-iaw as Zelda Sears and Vincent Ser
rano do here; but the stage siren was
incidental to single act, and there in
troduced a very devilish amalgam of
the Merry Widows alluring waltz and
Salomes decoying where Hattie VIII
liams gives Garments fandango.
Mary Garden and Decorum.
Mary Garden. Of grand opera. has no
dread of indecorum. When the
Strauss Wilde "Saiome" was intro
duced here last winter, the prima dom
ma walked heavily away at the cue for
the dance before Herod. for she
weighed nearer two hundred than one,
and into her place the ballet premier
swirled lightly. being nearer one hun
dred than two; but Mary, emboldened
By beauty and grace. does the stunt in
this springs reproduction with a nudi-
~ that's admirable, or deplorable, as
you choose
Meanwhile opposition becomes tho
life of the barefoot business. One Of
the stripping dancers gets into the
days news by being arrested on a
charge of immoral exposure of her per-
son; another by seeming to almost
drown in the tank where she is danc-
ing Naiad; third loses one week to
exploit herself for the next with bull
letins Of pneumonia caught In I'M
dress; and a fourth brings a suit TO
make all dancers keep their stockings
on because she was the first TO dance |
with them off. She may not know that |
Maggie Mitchell. in giving "Fanchon"
on an occasion OF benevoience, let |
charity cover her feet in the shadow |
dance. instead of the customary stock |
fngs with tricky toes on them; where
upon Lolita Crabtree made similar |
gift to a good cause by being sure |