The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1912-08-25

IS swallow and comparatively wide.
MAKING every seat in the house as
soon Tor seeing and for hearing as
Inouah 1T were, in the front row.
In shape and general character the
oullding, suggests Mr.. Brady's
other theater. The Playhouse. a
rev yards west of which it stands:
,wpile decoratively it is more SINH
lar TO the Maxine Elliott theater,
as perfect a playhouse for small
Risys as existed in the world, until
WInthrop Ames built the incompar-
able Little Theater. Passing
through shallow lobby lined with
Selned Italian marble aud through
ooors OF golden oak enameled in
whlte; one enters a dignified. if
slghtly too impersonal. auditorium
IN old ivory. with marble pillars at
ooth sides of the boxes and tapes-
Itrled walls of d greenish- gray. with
hanglngs, seats and carpets of the
same shade. Still, just as the most
beautiful thing in The Playhouse is
the portrait of Miss Grace George
In one OF her wonderful Lady
Ieazle dresses, which hangs in the
LOBBY, the most attractive detail of
the new theater seemed to me the
living Miss George. framed in
Proscenium box. But can we hope
she will remain a fixture? And If
she should. would not the cost to
our comedy be far too much?
TT / have fingered on the charms
l. Of the new theater it is per.
maps because there is so much that
ls agreeable to be said about it and
SO little about the play that opened
II. The house. by the way. was to
nave been named the Edwin Booth.
during the course of construction
the designation modified itself to
the Forty-eighth Street theater,
what falling of was there.
AGAIN edging away from the sub.
Ject of the play, ! seeD The pro.
gramme calls "Just Like john a
. frankly farcical play" but
frankly it not so much farce as IL
Is burlesque of farce, In the
writing of it Mark Swan was asso.
ciated with George Broadhurst,
whose fame was founded on farce,
notably ''What Happened to
Iones' and "Why Smith Left
Home. - Has Mr., Broadhurst
grown beyond this sort of play7-
or has the public grown beyond the
Broadhurst brand OF it7 In either
case, ''Just Like john was uni.
versally received as peculiarly
puerile.
In the gold old manner, charac.
ters assumed DISCUSSES, invented
Incredible tales and hid here and
there and everywhere for no rea-
son, given or to be guessed, beyond,
bly,, the all-envelopinp ey~
cuse that the play was farce and
people always act that way in
farce. The scene was the court.
yard. and later a verauda, of
hotel on the Atlantic coast, prob
ably Atlantic City; whereat the
note Of tragedy was imme ediately
sounded in the fact that the hos.
telry must have been doing starva-
tion business. for though IN public
places throughout. only six guests
were visible. The first to appea-
was a widowed gossip (Miss Flor
inc Aruold) who was inferentialiy
censured for spying on her fellow
guests; but inasmuch as there ap-
peared to be only FIVE Of them, all
practically of a family, what else
had the poor soul to dos A young
wife and her unmarried sister
Miss Helen Lackaye and Miss
Lola May) were awaiting the re.
turn from New York Of Che form
er's husband, played with enough
gusto and sense Of fun by. Walter
Jones to do much for the farce.
He was a Secret Service detective,
though Of course his wife did not
know it. Else how could she be-
come suspicious when he was pho
tographed in the daily prints in
company with q gorgeous Russian
anarchist, who was a siren when
not working at her regular business
Of bomb-throwing? Also "of
course the husband did nothing so
rational and easy as to explain the
situation. Dear me, no. He told
about another man who resembled
him as closely as a twin; aud,
thereupon, disguised himself in a
pair of spectacles and pretended to
be the other man.