The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1911-04-11
Theatres.
CHEsrNUr SrRFRr THrArpE

/ Ford's play of newspaper life, ''Ths
8 Fourth Estate" Long runs of the play
in New York and Chicago kept interest il
3 the piece alive and it was rather a disap
| pointment to many local patrons of the
/ playhouse, to learn that the company
! would not visit Philadelphia this seassn.
! Manager Grant Laferty, of the Chestnut
Street Theatre, was among visitors to New
: York who had seen the piece, and when
he ascertained the play was not destined
for an engagement here, he began negotia-
tons with Liebler & Company with the
result that he had obtained the entire
original production for presentation at the
Chestnut beginning on Easter Monday
safternoon, April II. All the leading
members of the Orpheum Players will
have roles IN the play and, in addition,
there will be IN the cast several members
of the Liebler Company, especially en-
gagged because of the fact that they are
4 types" and are thus important in the
creation of atmosphere. The engage
ment promises to be one of the most nota-
bic in the history OF the Orpheum Players
The play is in four acts, three of which
are set in newspaper Office In two acts,
the management editors Office is the busy
scene depicted. The concluding act shows
the composing room of the newspaper at
time of ''going to press" ard linotype
operators working at high speed, stereo-
typers, makeup" men, copy-cutters, and
others workers familiar to employees of
newspapers are among the active partici-
pants. Ponderous linotype machines are
seen in operation, and for realism, the
| 1c RI
upon the stage. Liebler & Company went
to the greatest pains to stage this scene
with realistic effect and no details will be
omitted here.
GARRIcK THEATRE.
How many persons see in play like
The Fortune Hunter at the Gsrrick
Theatre, Philadelphia, sometimes that
touches closely on some part of their own
lives or someone near or dear to them
A great many I'll warrant" says John
Barrymore, in speaking of the types
Winchell Smith has drawn into his comedy.
'sDo you know the actor continued.
II see many little bits of pathos over the
footl1ghts every night when go through
my part. You know the story of this play
isn't all comedy, and all the way through
there is double tragedy of lives that is
worked out by the author to happy end
lng-the down and out young fellow who
in desperation agrees to seek out wealthy
heiress and marry her for her money, and
the old druggist who has made failure of
his life. And these two ne'er- to-do-wells
rub together and flash the fire of ambition
that leads to better things for both.
There are plenty of persons who are
in the audience that have begin at the
bottom and worked up, and they can't
help feeling and showing a personal in
terest to the fellow up on the stage. Only
the other night l nearly broke down when
seen one OF these men down near the
front. 1t was when 1 was 1ecturing the
druggists daughter and telling her not to
scold her father, and that she would re-
greet it when he was gone, and that he
could not help it iffhe were not so progress
slve as his neighbors. The pathos of those
lines touches me, anyway, but that night
l looked down into the audience and saw
an old white-haired man watching the
scene with tense expression and features
drawn as if in pain
AS finished my scolding / saw his
head droop and slowly nod an affirmative
appreciation. Then he reached and took
his handkerchief and furtively wiped tears
from his eyes. That man had been scold- |
ed by someone. He hadn't always looked
as he did then, and someone had hurt him |
deeply back somewhere in his life. I
nearly cried with him, and the thought of |
what he was going through !nearly drove |
the lines from my mind. To be sure he |
laughed Winchells Smiths lines
would make statue laugh-but there
was pathos even in his laugh that kept
me fascinated until the last curtain.
And it isn't only the old men failures |
| have seen out there. / have seen Young |
fellows who indicate plainly that they're |
going to buckle up tight and be something |
This may be only at the beginning of dis
couragement, but I'll bet even against the |
rules they are going to tackle Something
at new angle-and maybe they will sue
coed It's great when man can write a
play like that, and I'm glad I'm PLAYING
Nat Duncan"
CHESTNUT STREET OPERA HOUSE.
Philadelphia is to have its first popular
price grand opera season in a long time,
beginning Monday, April 74th, when the
Aborn English Grand Opera Company
will inaugurate an engagement of four
weeks at the Chestnut Street Opera House.
This organization numbers one hundred
and twenty-five in its double cast, chorus
and orchestra, and four other duplicate or
CARNATIONS under the direction of Milton
and Sargent Aborn, will be located at the
same time in Boston, Brooklyn, Baltimore
and Washington for the spring season.
Complete productions for all the operas
presented will be transferred from one of
these companies to the other each week, |,
and principal artists will be interchanged
IN the same way, so that each role will be
assigned to the singer best suited to it.
Two sets of principals will appear each
week, so that each one will be required to
a NJ
during the week, as there will be eight Il
successive performances of each opera.
For the opening week, beginning Mon
day, April 24th, the offering will be
Puccini's masterpiece, Madame Butter
fly" with Dora De Fillipe, Regina Vic
arlr1o, Ellen James, Henry Taylor, Morton
Adkins, Rudolph Koch, Saul Roselle, Zoe
Fulton, Fred Chapman and others in the
cast, with Carlo Nicosia as conductor and
Edward P. Temple as stage director.
The second week will be given to I'll
Trovatore, " the third to the first product
ion in English in this country of Masses
nets opera, 'Thais" and the fourth to
Puccini's "La Boheme." Ii
There will be six nights and two matt
nee performances each week, the prices
for evenings and Saturday matinees being
rs cents to $500, while those for the {
popular Wednesday matinees being rs, so
and rs cents. The subscription books
opened yesterday, for those who desire to
secure the same seats for a certain per-
Torrance each week, and the regular adj
vance sale for all performances will open
on Monday, April 18th.
FORREST THEATRE, PHILADELPHIA
ga FooI. THERE WAS"
Robert billiard comes to the Forrest
Theatre on Easter Monday, April 18th, for
his last Philadelphia presentation of "a
Fool There Was" This curiously fasci-
mating play has had three enormous en-
gagements at the Garrick, but this will be
the first time that it has been given at the
Forrest. No other drama in recent years
has taken such hold on Philadelphia
play-goers. Its success in other cities is a
matter of stage history. During the past
two years Mr.. Hil1iard has revived it no
less than twelve times in various theatres
in New York and Brooklyn, and it has had
three revivals each in Baltimore, Wash
ington, Pittsburgh, Chicago and Boston.
1t has been pronounced a graphic object
lesson in clean and domestic fidelity and
a powerful temperance lesson of vivid i'm
port. In his portrait of the delirium
crazed diplomat brought to ruin by the
vampire woman, depicted in Kip1ing's
grimly satirical poem, Mr.. billiard has
shattered nearly one thousand mirrors and
smashed twice as many more wine glasses
and brandy bottles. He has fallen down
ten thousand feet of stairway; a distance
about equal to the highest recorded avia-
ton fight. All this involves a nervous (
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