Evening star., 1923-06-24
Continued from First Page.)

tCOntlnQeO from TdEH.J
1t was so pertinent and appropriate
to the conditions, both on and off
the stage. that it was greeted with
shouts of laughter, and the audience
settled down in a much better humor,
disposed to suffer 1t out. while the
actors put much more vim in their
acting.
In the spring of 1866, Mr. and Mrs.
while making one of their farewell
tours" visited Washington. booked to
play Henry the Eighth" Kean as
Cardinal Wolsey, and his wife as
Catherine. They were both growing
old, and Mr.. Kean was showing great
loss of vitality. The tickets had been
disposed of at IS seat, and they had
a crowded house. The play dragged
along wearily. and in the scene be-
tween the cardinal and Cromwell the
great tragedian drawled through his
part in a lazy and indolent manner.
to the disappointment and disgust of
his audience.
In those days it was no unusual
thing to wind up the performance
with what was called IAN afterpiece,"
this generally taking the form of a
low comedy. A few nights after
Kean's appearance, the stock COM
pany put on "The Stage-Struck Bar
Der" as an afterpiece. After CIV
ing limitations of several favorite
actors, the barber advanced to the
front of the stage and said he would
give an imitation of Kean in Cardi-
nal wolsey, and added, 81 will not
charge you five dollars, either" So
perfectly did he initiate Kean's voice.
gestures and lackadaisical manner
that he was rapturously cheered, for
most Of his audience had been among
the five-dollar victims of the Eng
lishman
" Hutchinson family. il l remem-
Der rightly. gave a concert. consist
ing mostly of oId-time ballads. They
introduced as one of their numbers
new song, that is, it was new to
Washingtonians, entitled Way Down
in Maine" 1t was in a manner de-
scriptive of what had. or what would
"Way down in Maine" fixing the To-
cality. The song at once became tre-
mendously popular with the street
gamins especially. They hummed it,
whistled 1t. sang 1t on the streets, and
pounded it out on the iron lampposts;
the girls whanged 1T out on their
pianos and thrummed 1t on their gui-
tars So universal was its popularity
that you could hardly get out of the
sound of it day or night. 1t drove
into exile the former favorite, "Shoo
fly, Don't Bodder Me-
While in the height of it's popu-
larity came a season of Shakespeare,
for the good people of Washington
of those days still admired the old
English bard and enjoyed his plays.
One night Romeo and Juliet was on
audience which filed every part of
the auditorium. It was an apprecia-
tive audience, freely applauding, and
the actors were in their best style.
Both audience and actors appeared
to be pleased with each other and
all went swimmingly. no one dream
ing Of the disaster which awaited
them from the gallery. Juliet. nearly
crazed over the non-appearanee of
her lover, came on the stage. wiring
ing her hands. Presently. in that
heart-wailing tone supposed to be
the correct thing. she cried out:
Romeo. Romeo! Where art thou"
The information came as quick as
fash from the galleries, when a god
sang out in the proper nasal tone,
"way deown in Maine"
The thought that Romeo was
hiding In the pine regions of our
most northeastern state was too
much for the audience and too much
for the players and was greeted by
the audience with bursts of laughter,