The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-03-03
"OLNER TWSTn IS PLAYED IN NEW YORK Nat Goodwin, Constance Collier and Others in Cast WHAT PUBLIC WANTS Miss Florence St. John, Once Famous Actress, Dies in Obscurity-Many
 People Were Started in Bus
 mess by Leayitt
By JAMES GRANT rHuRsToN

1
 By JAMES GRANT THURSTON | New York, March -tSpecial) )-Ths
 most interesting happening in the New York dramatic field this week -,as the
 presentation of Charles Dickens "Oliver
 Twist at the New Amsterdam theatre
 Monday evening. It recalled many most
 pleasant memories to old time theatre
 goers and has given real pleasure all week
 to the hundreds who have crowded the
 big auditorium.
 | The present adoption of the masterpiece
 of the great English novelist was made by
 ! Comyns Carr for Sir Herbert Tree at His Majesty's theatre. The cast included Nat c. Goodwin as Fagin Constance Col
 Her as Nancy. Lyn Harding as Bill Sykes | and Marie Dorn as Oliver Twist other 1 members of the company are Olive Wynd-
 ham, Fuller Mellish. Suzanne Sheldon, 1 Courtenay Foote, Charles Hanbury and | Howard Gould
 Ii is finely balanced production.
 Mr. Weedon Grossmith said some sensi-
 ble things a few days ago to a reporter
 who was discussing the star system
 T am getting" he< said, more and
 more unprejudiced as to my own part in
 the play A piece may offer me excellent
 opportunities I may be this in the first act that in the second and sometimes
 more astonishing still in the third act.
 T may be on the stage practically the l whole evening. Now l am sure that IS
 not what the public wants. The playgoer
 asks for a plot. story, an entertaining
 subject skillfully worked out. But 1t | wants the interest spread among all the characters forming the cast. An actor
 manager is very apt to be hypnotized by | a play which contains a clever and diver siied character for himself. But what of
 the play? It by no means follows that t play containing an excellent part for the leading actor is also an excellent piece.
 "The fact of the matter is that the idea is thoroughly exploded that the public
 comes to the theatre to see nothing else but one person appearing under certain l aspects congenial to his talent. This mo- 1 ton has been worked to death. The pub lie nowadays wants a play, not part,
 and no part, to vary Eucip, is greater l than the whole.'
 l Miss Florence St John. for many years
 a leading and highly popular actress in
 comedy, comic opera and musical comedy, l who died in England recently, had out | lived her popularity and died in obscurity. | Her career was one of ups and downs. 1 She began. very young, to sing at penny | readings, magic lantern shows and con turing entertainments. She was IA years and months when she eloped with Mfr ] St. John, who was in the army, and mar- ried him. She next began to tour the provinces, singing at doramas, Peppers Ghost" and similar non descript enter | tainments.
 This was a terrible struggle, for St. John
 fell i'll. and Johnny" as her friends
 called her, tramped all over London try
 ing to get work and keep the pair of them | At last she got situation at 12s a week, | on which she had to keep dying hus- 1 band. Often she went to bed without a 1 crust, and was indebted 10 the good old
 man who kept a coffee stall for mug Of 1 hot coffee
 l In later years, when she had large | salary and hosts of friends she was driv- ing home in a hanson when she saw the | old man. She jumped out of the cab in
 her evening dress and introduced herself 1 as the poor girl to whom he used to give 1 hot coffee. He would accept nothing but
 a fur coat which the actress bought him l for the winter nights It was these early
 experiences that maue Florence St. John | so generous and free handed in later years. She could never refuse a case of
 distress-but perhaps if she had she would 1 have died richer.
 M. B. Leavitt, whose volume of reminis- | cences. Fifty Years in Theatrical Man agement," has just been issued, started many persons of note in the amusement l field only to see them become distin- | guished in other fields. The persons of
 note that owe their beginning to him are
 now prominent in the theatre and they | can be numbered by scores. When a rail
 way was put through from Omaha to Og- l den and San Francisco MT. Leavitt or ganized one of the first vaudeville com panies that crossed the continent. At that 1 time Henry NJ. Stanley, the discoverer of 1 Dr. Livingstone in Afsica, was a reporter on an Omaha paper. and MT. Leavitt | urged him to become his business asso- ciate. Stanley consented and acted as ad- vance man for the Leavitt organization. | Detective William J. Burns is hard at | work on new detective playefor Klaw | & Erlanger. The. play will be based on I his personal experiences in his pursuit of I criminals and his methods of detection. | Harriet Ford and Harvey J. OIiggins will assist him in the work. The hero will be detective of the Burns type. | Mir Ned walburn, whose methods of l training a company for musical comedy are known to most young men and women | in that line of entertainment and whose name is known to the others, is in vaude- vile to show how the work is done. He is appearing in Hammerstein's Victoria theatre with company of 50 in a sketch with three scenes, which bears the name | of 'The Producer" It is spectacular | farce showing the evolution of musical comedy.
 l More than half a score of requests were received from the New York newspapers by Messers.H Weber and Fields at the Broadway theatre for a. statement show | ing the amount of their box office re- ceipts for the first week of the revival of their burlesque entertainment. There was more than $14.O0o Tin the house" ons the opening night, most of it resulting from the auction sale of seats and boxes At the eight other performances, including the special matinee on Lncoln's birthday it is said that every seat in the theatre was sold. MT. Lew Fields was willing that the statement of their receipts be given to the public, but Mr Weber thought otherwise, giving as reason that he believed it was unlucky to boas, about good business The figures are said to have established new box office rec ord.
 While Marc Klaw of Klaw & Erlangsr was abroad he made arrangements for the production of Tristan Berna rd,s "I e petit