The Duluth rip-saw. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1917-19??, 1919-11-01
THEATRICAL ATTRACTIONS IN
THE DAYS OF LONG AGO.

Id6aIh4CAb AI1hACI4ONS In
THE DAYS OF LONG AGO.
As this column has stated before,
Duluth maintained two theatres be-
tween twenty-five and thirty years ago
that were devoted exclusively to legit-
innate plays and which the people pat
ronized freely and well. In those days
a prominent citizen did not hesitate to
take his wife and daughters to the
Lyceum through fear that they would
be greeted with some obscene bur-
lesque or some vulgar, inane farce
filled with sleep-walking women in
gauzy nighties or abbreviated skirts,
showing ample sections Of robust busts,
arms and legs. In those days, both
the Lyceum and the Temple opera
strived to see which could give the
best, most popular and most elevating
attractions. In those days, Duluth 8
theater-goers did not consider Shakes
peare dull nor did they walk out be-
cause some classic did not abound in
naked tummies and bare breasts.
Thanks to an excess of this sexstuff,
the debasing influence of Old John
Barleycorn and great greed for the
dollar, really and truly high-grade
play, one that appeals to those Of edu-
cation, culture and refinement Of mind
and manners, is ignored by the Lyceum
management and that house now is Civ
en- over to cheap stock attractions, OBJ
scene burlesques, with a maximum Of
the nude, and farces so flat, rotten
and vulgar that nothing but a New
York audience will laugh at them.
Then, when nothing in the nude, lewd
and obscene is procurable, some NOV
ing picture attraction is put on, in
competition with the ten-cent movie
shacks further east on Superior street.
Something was doing in legitimate
attractions in the winter Of 1898. The
season closed in a burst and almost
surfeit of the best plays and players.
Early in May the Lyceum closed with
Miss Wainwright in GAS You Like
It," "Twelfth 'Night,' "!Social Serv-
ice,' and "The School of Scandal.''
. On May 2 and 3, Madame Janau.
schek appeared at the Lyceum in
"Lady Macbeth and "Meg Mer-
rifles" At the Temple opera, Friday
and Saturday, May and 6, the popu-
lar William H. Crane appeared in
"The; Senator' and "On Probation"
In about the second week of May, 1893,
Annie Pixley appeared at the Temple
in "Miss Blythe of Duluth and "The
Deacon's Daughter.''
Still later in May, Sousa g great con-
cert band came to the Lyceum. In
addition to his great company of per-
formers on wind and string instru-.
ments, he was accompanied by six of
the best vocalists then before the pub
lie.
There was Madame Fursch-Madi, a
noted soprano, and Madame Van Can
teren, another soprano of great re-
nown. Fraulein Behnnee, a contralto,
and Albert l.. Guile, the favorite
tenor of the Incompatible Patti, were
in the list. William Mertens, bari
tone, who had been one of Emma Alb
bott' favofite artists, made the fifth
Of the talented vocalists, while Signor
Vivano, a basso profundo, was the
sixth.
At about that time, Nat c. Goodwin
appeared here in "The Gilded Fool"
Bobbie Gaylor in "Sport McAllister"
came to the Temple on April 20, 1893,
and that play was about as light and
frivolous as the theatre-goers would
stand in those days of sane and solid
attractions.
On Wednesday, April 26, the public
took, for a change Of diet, Miller
Brothers "Kakanka," q pantomimic
farce-comedy. It was novel, clean, de.
cent and not debasing to mind and
morals.
When the Lyceum closed in May,
1893, Arthur w. Little, termed the
"handsome and popular treasurer"
took employment during the closed sea-
son on the SS. Ossifrage. Later, Ar
thur w. became ambitious and went
to New York. In those days, too, Ad-
die Thurston, as she was called in West
Duluth, was teaching school in this
city by day and reciting evenings,
when opportunity offered.
Arthur W. Little encouraged Addie
Thurston to 60 on the stage and he
gave her material advice and help to
that end. Their theatrical relations
eliminated in matrimony. Addie
climbed and Arthur may have stood
still, even if he did not 60 backward.
Marriage with them eventually proved
to be a failure, but that is another
story. Since their separation, Miss
Adelaide Thurston, as Duluth's home
grown and favorite actress is called,
has travelled in single harness and,
presumably, single blessedness.