Los Angeles herald., 1910-01-04
REAL FARCE ON
ORPHEUM BILL
LAWRENCE GRATTAN is THE
AUTHOR UF PLAYLET
FIVE NEW ACTS GIVE UNUSUAL
DEGREE OF NOVELTY
"Forty-five Minutes from Broadway"
Best of Cohan Musical Pieces,
Is Presented at the
Majestic
BY W. HERpERr BLAKE

True farce is such rarity nowadays
that it has remained for vaudeville
to rediscover 1t. Lawrence Grattan is
one of the disccverers. His Mrs.
Jones' Smith Carey" the best new act
on this weeks Orpheum bill, is as
clever as it is old fashioned, and judg-
ing from yesterdays applause its
fashion is destined to an early renais
Sance on the American stage. The
whole distinction lies in the authors
idea. All the great farce writer's had
about the same notion. They took a
little crowd of people with excellent
intentions. Then they mixed up the
intentions. Out of mutual misunder-
standing came the situations, which
were all the more comic because we
were In on the secret, while the stage
characters weren't. The element OF
suspense was minimized or confined to
the rush and whirl OF incident. 1t was
a moving picture, not a detective
story.
without writing an essay about II,
this is what Mr.. Grattan gave us yes
terday, appearing with Miss Eva ray
lor in the principal roles of the sketch.
There Is a widow bride, whose former
husband has passed under three sepa-
rate names to protect himself from
the nemesis of a grating scandal. she
fails to tell her second husband about
it, and he learns her three successive
appellations in a casually horrltylnS
Way from the servants. He also gets
the idea that his bride has poisoned
her (supposedly) three former hus-
bands. OF course, this upsets him.
quite as much as the harmless medi-
cine she mixes for his headache
moment later. Things are nearing a
climax when q newspaper chipping eN-
plains all and the wife triumphs by
managing to withdraw her husband s
savings from a bank about to fail-a
ruse he has dolefully imagined was
simply an incidental feature or her
poison campaign.
The acting, including two comedy
servants by Earl Ford and MISS
Blanche Craig, is agreeable. If you
enjoy farce here is a capital chance TO
indulge the craving.
Miss Florence Bindley presents
"musical monologue," of which lhe
music is better than the chit-chat, she
burlesuues a French actress singing Il
Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls In
delightful way, and plays Wen on the
Xylophone. I think l should have lkeu
her monologue, if only could nave
discovered II. ,.,..
Miss stella Fl. Morrisini exhibits
some handsome Siberian wolf hounds
both uuiescent and on the leap. Some
pretty ponies prance about the stage
while the dogs plunge undauntedly
between the interstices of their nine
ing legs. 1t is an attractive act, not
particularly original, but agreeable to
watch.
The Millership sisters are pretty
young women, fetchingly gowned and
fleet of foot in the dance. Harry FOX,
who accompanies them with some oc-
casionally diverting repartee, is an
amply proportioned young man whose
comedy method appears to follow Ed
Wynn-rather far behind. His spirits
were sufficiently contagious to affect
the gallery at once, but his patter very
frequently was disfigured by an intru-
sive suggestiveness. T.-ere are plenty
of people wh0 would like his act quite
as well without 1t.
The Four Floods are quartet of
iolly buffoons, who bat and kick each
other around the stage, and laugh mer-
rily enough at each resounding whack.
In between our laughs they slip a few
acrobatic turns, but the melee is so
fierce and all but continuous that we
scarcely rate these at their fair value.
Horseplay of this sort is tonic and no
well regulated vaudeville bill should
be without it.
The holdovers are QLinlan and Mack
in 1.-THE Travelling Dentist" William H.
Thompson and company In pride of