Imperial Valley press., 1914-02-07

son appearance of Sothern and julia
NARROW, William Haversham will be
gin spell of Shakespeare on Monda!
night at the Lyric. He will begin will
"Othello." Faversham will play Iago
profting by the experience of Forbes
Robertson and taking a leaf from the
book of the late Sir Henry Irving
Supported by his wife, Julie Opp, ar
an admirable cast, Faversham will fol.
low "Othello" with Julius Caesar
A notable event of this week was
the return to Broadway of Blanche
Ring in "When Claudia Smiles" at
the Thirty-ninth street theatre. The
piece had a try out in London and was
very successful. Miss Ring sings
and dances with her usual skill and
charm and altogether the comedy is
entertaining and we'll worth while.
The British Invasion" bids fair to
slip cog in the engagement of H.
V. Esmond and Eva Moore at the Gar
rick. While Forbes-R Robertson, Cyril
Maude and several other London stars
who have swooped down on Broadway
this season have scored tremendous
successes the Esmonds-Miss Moore
is the wife-somehow have failed to
land. eliza Comes to Stay" their
first offering, may have come to stay
but she didn't. The play lasted only
a week or so.
"a Dear Fool" the current Esmonl
attraction, will fare little better. The
first act is insipid and of no conse-
quence. The subsequent acts wake up
bit, throw out ther chests and strut,
but it is feeble attempt. Esmond ven.
lures much. For instance his heroine
has two half-grown sons, yet flirts with
beardless youth of two and twen-
ty. Where is the romantic interest
that could survive that? In the play
the fledgling hero proposes to the for
ty year old heroine for the hundredth
time and she refuses. When woman
does that on the stage, it amounts to
absolute heroics, if not heroism.
And after all that, an elderly ad-
mirer solves the problem by marrying
the widow-yes, she is that-himself.
The hero loses. The first act is so
light and frothy that fluff of thistle
down would tear through its flimsy
texture. The second act is ranting
melodrama and the third is too talky
and full of unanswered stuff.
We have with us today sure
enough melodrama, play of the
plains, "Heap Game Watch" at the
Lyceum. 1t makes all the women an,
children weep, which insures it sue.
cess as sure-fre Saturday afternoon
matinee favorite. The characters are
all of the regulation frontier type,
though the piece has modern twist,
the hero being wanted for shooting
game out of season instead of rustling
cattle or operating still and the vii
lain being game warden, where a
"revenuer" or vigilante used to fill
the bill.
The action of the play is woven
about the sacrifice of Jim Hawkins,
the plainsman, who gives himself up
to the game warden to keep a mar
ried cowboy from eloping with the
hero's daughter. How this prevents
the elopement is not made clear, but
there is plenty of sentiment in it, and
when at the very end of the piece the
girl says: "What in hell am to do ?"
none of the audience can answer her,
but the naughty word thrills.
Around the Victoria they are laugh
ing covertly at the plight of "URcle
Oscar" Hammerstein, who by a few
swipes of a painters brush, lost his
files and practically all of his office
paraphernalia.
Be it known that the impressario
never keeps book or ledger of any
kind. For years he has been in the
habit of noting all telephone numbers,
addresses, engagements and such on
the bare walls of his den on the top
| floor of the theatre. William Ham,
merstein hired a painter to brighten
up the worn spots of the theatre. In
nocently the painter stumbled on tc
"Uncle Oscars" sanctum and imme-
diately daubed its walls dark green,
Hammerstein came in presently to use
the telephone. After doing several laps
of marathon around the office, he ar
rived at the conclusion that he had
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