The Salt Lake herald-Republican. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1909-1918, 1910-08-07
THINGS DOING IN GOTHAM
BY FRANKLIN FYLES.

names would mean hardly more in
London than the nothing they stand
for here-pOssibly e. cepting Mr.. and
Mrs. COburn, the leaders.
Have ] tossed my cap TO hail Co
lumbia for its theatrical garden Gull
ture? Have / held out a glad hand
10 MacKaye for his close on to
genius? Have I cried "Hear-hear"
10 the COburn players for their flaw
less utterance Of English? Very well.
Now let me say that for roughness Of
tOmfOOlery, for tOughness of i'm
morality and for immOdesty carried
into indeCency The Canterbury Pill
gTims" is no better than the worst of
the 'revues" that 1 have told you OF
this summer. Elizabethan literature
of the style copied in this play wasn't
prudish; and in going further back 10
the time of Chaucer, the author is
boldly faithful 70 his purpose. He
puts forward at the outset the wife
OF Bath" who has had five husbands
without yet getting as much as she
Graves of men; for she is tagged,
much to her liking. by a scottish. sod
den. Goldfish gang of six middle
aged lovers. She and they are at
a wayside inn as pilgrims to Canter-
bury. She carOuses and promises 10
is an amorOus but still frocker priest
who travesties "Benedicite" in a Iipsy
ballad TO the wife; another is a
wrestling bully, who would take her
by force; and altogether they are a
greasy, smutty, ugly half dozen who
make a night OF it with her.
How Chaucer Appears.
Dan Chaucer gets there in the guise
Of q poor wanderer. The deviltry OF
the wife of Bath captures his erratic
fancy and he inelines TO take her
away from the louis. A dainty
marchioness comes along on her way
10 Canterbury, and he turns to her;
also. young prioress from a nun
merry, and he shifts TO her; and he
writes verses to both while they are
light-mannered. as high-born maid
ems may have been in that time. The
wife, with pTankish tricks, works up
such a muss OF jealOusies that, when
all arrive at Canterbury next day, the
mandatory interference of Richard
the Second is needed TO pair off the
three women for desirable matrimo-
ny. THE Canterbury Pilgrims"
would require no change in words or
shape for use as a musical comedy
except to elaborate its songs and
multiply its chorus girls and make
handsome setting.
Summer jewellers in country houses
within fifty miles auto into town for
an evening at show. Suppose we
reverse the process and go motoring
beyond the city in quest of stage nov
city. We roll across one Of the great
bridges 10 Long Island and soon come
TO a village billed for Uncle Toms
Cabin" A matinee performance is in
progress. Marks donkey, hitched
out in front of the opry house. brays
like a side-shOW barker while await
ing his turn as an actor. We hear
from within the baying of a blood
hound chasing Eliza. In we go in
time 10 see the runaway slave leap
from the last cake of river ice to free
soil We may be edited by the same
actress as Camille by waiting until
evening; also as the forsaken Leah
and the clipping Lady Isabelle by
SPEEDING tomorrow in a town twenty
miles away: for she is the leader OF
a repertory company that makes a
round OF six Long Island places each
week; but we forego the opportunity
and hOnk-hOnk along TO Manhattan
Beach.
There a theatre of good size and
shape NltllNH SUPP es-lJ mat SS0AH
like Lillian Russells voice. and so II
is. This is vaudeville house, and she !
drops III 20 sing a quarter of an hour
twice a day for enough money, don't
doubt, to pay the running expenses OF
a summer villa mile away. The man
ager can't solve the problem how TO I
let the sea air come into his theatre
freely and not let Lillian's arias go out /
free 10 the beach multitude. How
ever, her beauty Is more famous than
her voice. and he leaves no peepholes
for gratis sight of that
The man would get rich quick who
devised way 10 make folks pay to