Show F A L Seeking S Amusement BY FRANKLIN FYLES in Gotham Cotham New York April 3 The advertise advertisements advertisements advertisements ments named no new new ew play pla here this week but I found three thre at the open opening opening ing of the Pioneer theatre where drams drama Is meant to appeal to those who do not yet know the significance of socialism and to focus latent forces In the cause of economic Jus justice lice tice The theatre Just around a n Bowery Bowe corner was a grimy oM old place and had of late been used by a Yiddish dish company An audience e of OCO iCO crowded It The first lesson was Tho The Moral Demand In which a moralist v besought a wayward actress to return r tum b respectability as s his wite bu she A j ib decided to remain emancipated from matrimony and so 80 he being fas ed became her affinitive companion A second lesson was Their Daugh r rIn In which the sordid hypocrisy of one marriage was depicted by a n poor girls and deception of ot a rich mir mar mirA marA manA A clever and pretty young actress Muriel Hope had been hired to t make the lessons In free love ant an t fett ting wedlock effectual The third lesson The Dolls DoUg had been written by Julius Hopp organ organizer organIzer organizer izer of socialistic Sunday schools and founder of this Pioneer The forces which ho lie seeks to antagonize e were personated by b two girls firle Alice Allee was the daughter laughter of wealthy man who to gratify her pampered d whim brought home hom from his hi toy 10 manufactory every day a fine new doll Annas mother was an unfed widow who came to beg for work and brought her hungry child along Tho father fondly Indulgent to his Mice had no feelings for the widows Anna AnnaThe AnnaThe The Tho woman pleaded for work ant and the tile theman theman man refused aid Alice Allee and Anni childishly prattled the social enmities of their parents And Mr Hopp gave the sympathy to poor Anna by hav having Im ImIn havIng ing In her accused of I stealing one of rich Alices surplus dolls which she had bad hadj ha j taken to play with innocently The widow Ido climaxed the play with a J tie de des that the poor lacking even eve II rags dolls for pleasure had a right to seize the elegant wax dolls of the tho rich If It these hogs wont let us fam creatures get to the trough of oC food was the gist of her harangue they tho may expect us to slice the ba bacon bacon bacon con from their own fattened sides In the forenoon Hopp had assem bled poor pupils from his socialistic Sunday school to see The Dolls and learn leatH to hate the rich In the after afternoon afternoon afternoon noon while the play was being given for tor the education of adults and at Just about the minute when the widow berated the father In the Pioneer the theatre atre as nearly as I could calculate the time afterward an anarchist at the socialists meeting fh th Union square mangled himself and killed a comrade in an attempt to destroy a squad of ot police with a bomb that became a boomerang 4 L A quest of stage novelty for a letter filled usually by accounts of new plays took me to A Night In Bohe Bohemia Bohemia mia Vaudeville Is being varied in ingeniously ingeniously I 1 described lately the de device deIce device vice Ice of putting forth the American Eva Tang ay and the English Vesta Victoria ostensibly as contestants for audiences award of supremacy and andl andt l t made it inferential that the contest vas nas a fake falce yet when that weeks Saturday night came Vesta was so hoarse with strained vocal ocal cords that tha t she sing and Eva was It gleeful exultation danced so violently I as to stop herself with a sprained an ankle ankle ankle kle Not much longer ago I told how the amateur night had grown from froma fromn a n ark lark once a week at the cheaper heaper variety houses to an extra hour of prearranged fun in which real novices were not submitted to impromptu ridi ridicule culp cule but the butts of abuse were hired performers who pretended to be dazed by b the first glare of the footlights A Night in Bohemia Is an invention to make up on Sunday for tor the Sab laws elimination of f dances acrobatic acts pla lets and every everything ever everything thing else except singing plain speak and instrumental music r j i t I New Xe Yorkers bite hungrily at hooks baited with promises of oddity Twelve hundred paid the tho best drama prices for seats at this show of stunts They saw on the stage a dozen pairs of men and amI girls seated at one large table and two small ones Tho The ad advertisements advertisements advertisements had said that Califor Calif 01 would dominate the occasion A Aman Aman man of gray dignity and declared to tobe tobe tobe be a San Francisco judge of high de degree gree but he an actor of heavy fathers out of a Job presided at the main table The twentythree other wearers of oC dinner coat coats and polished white shirts were less les Impressive they looked as though the weeknight w supers wage of half halt a n dollar had been cut down to a quarter and the dozen girls been asked over from the Bowery to Broadway to sit In the cof coffee coffee fee and cigarette end of a dinner but they may haves have made some observers guess so The audience was asked to tf fancy that some chummy Californians had been celebrating the Golden state stat and were convivially hilarious when the rising curtain exposed them to view quite unexpectedly A high tenor ballad 1st stood by a piano the player of which stood equit equitably equitably equitably ably by him The Californian young gentlemen at the tables were trying to keep their misfit shirt front straight by b strutting In their seats scats while white they toyed to ed with glasses that showed n p no stain of California grape squeeze The only bottle with the shreds of ofa ofa ofa a champagne seal stood close to the operative elbow and protective hand of the judge from San Francisco and the tho one visible cigar was kept burn burnIng burnIng burning Ing by his good old gray honors breath bellows The girl guests who would have looked true to truth If billed as chair warmers from the camp canin concert halls of 49 were nibbling at what I guessed were wore dessert bits hits of ff cake and candy cand till tilt the prolonged durability of the cuds suds tipped me off ft to toa toa toa a bettor bet that the material of such slow mastication be aught else elso than gum um The management had been too re respectful respectful respectful of James A Herpes memory to attempt an effacement of oC the tur turkey turkey key dinner in Shore Acres Nothing smelt fizzed fi zed or was otherwise real realistic In Bohemia The Tho method was as asmore more suggestively artistic more im impressionably Impressionably impressionably vague more Imaginative Imaginatively ly Iy atmospheric for the judge mention the tho banquet as having been held hold mainly at a neighboring restaurant restaurant restaurant rant and brought thence to let the audience see Its finish I would not Uge lige to seem presumptuous my Ideas are bound to be crude as to this af affair affair affair fair of exquisite taste but it have been a masterstroke of genius to provide two dozen quill toothpicks to those two dozen so that during the en ensuing ensuing ensuing suing show shrew they could keep up the Il II Illusion Illusion lusion of a preceding repast by picking Invisible bits bUs of It out of their word wordless wordless wordless less mouths The portly old follow fellow who played the California judge was as wooden a 3 astick astick stick as ever was cast for fora a comedy role As toastmaster at a dinner of undertakers he would be too funereal and when he stood up to introduce the first specialists I have been surprised to head him say sa Friends desiring to view the remains may now have the opportunity to do so What hat he did say was Two young gentle gentlemen gentlemen gentlemen men from San Francisco have prom promised promIsed promised to entertain us They are some somewhere somewhere somewhere where In the house We will try tr to find them Thereupon an operator ofa of ot ofa ota a searchlight aimed It here and there until It illumined two chaps on their way down an aisle across acoss a footbridge over the absent orchestras pit and thence to the stage In the phrase of OC the early Califor C Californian lICor nian music hall said the judge dont shoot them for do the best they can Their best was bad doggerel and Worse dialogue and while they were at it the audience all but rated A Night In Bohemia as ns an amateur night to be enjoyed by guying if It at atall atall atall all The premonitions of raillery In the audience caused visible nervousness on the stage the young oung ladles ladies and gentle gentlemen gentlemen gentlemen men from California caught cau ht an uneasy cue from the judge as they sipped air from front dry glasses ate nothing with bare spoons from empty empt dishes or chewed gum A waiter walter made a busy bus round of the tables and seemed to take away many man orders from the guests but he never came back with anything except a highball and a cigar for the chairman charman Am I wrong in the Insinuation that he was an actor on a mercenary Job Was vas he a real Judge rewarded only by whisky and tobacco In spite of all that A Night in Bo Bohemia Bohemia hemia hernia was a good goo l enough entertain entertainment entertainment entertainment ment for among those summoned from the audience were several of ot the clev cleY cleverest cleverest erest In vaudeville and anda a zest was given to the show by the nonsensical assumption of revelry I regret exceedingly that they came camo near me Distance had lent enchant enchantment enchantment enchantment ment They Th y were a sylphide sylph de two in sin a troupe of otherwise brawny men who tossed and tumbled them In feats of strength and agility It was impossible ble to scrutinize their faces while they th y were active In a circus ring a hundred feet away but It could be seen that their bodies and ld limbs were girlishly g delicate and symmetrical and the small proportion of skirts to their en entire entire entire tire costumes were fluffy coquetry to their stunts of idealized manliness When their act was over they ran across the arena to the exit close un under under under der the box In which I sat I should have known enough to look the other way so as not to risk the spoiling of my fancy faney by b seeing fact The program had told me they the were sisters and they surely were like twins in small size and jaunty shape but their faces were oh so different One painted visage was that of ot a woman of ot forty fort and upwards That she was the mother of or the other was not nol to be doubted And the other oto r was as certainly certainly certainly no girl but a boy bo In a It blonde wig of abundant long hair His fea features features features tures might have been a girls and his form font could have haye passed for a still childish maidens but you have seen actors carelessly drop their character characterization characterization before passing quite out of a scene and lapse an Instant too soon Into their own selves That is what this sister did He ceased to be a graceful girl and became a striding boy and for a conclusive giveaway he hitched up tile We Irksome lower loner edge of oC his corsage as though It were the waistband of his trousers Later In the evening misguided by my experience with those sisters who were mother and son I shut my mr eyes e es as the Leamy ladles ladies came along They were four of ot a kind as to size and shape shave and had done some aston astonishing astonIshing astonIshing things on trapezes away awa up high I was determined d to retain In memory the sight of ot their grace and symmetry unimpaired If they the w were re three or four generations of Leamy ladles ladies I wish Ish to find it out outLook outLook outLook Look quick said my m companion they are all young oung and pretty enough for show girls on a stage or ladies ladles In Ina Ina ina a drawing room So they were sc Women have hae become numerous in acrobatic performances This sh show w was Barnum Baileys for 1908 1905 with with three rings and md two platforms so that sometimes five flie troupes were doing things at once and I noted that six out of ten gave girlish grace to that monotonous exercise that three parties parti s of tumblers bal balancers balancers and included a around around around round dozen of genuine women and girls that two flying trapeze compa companies companies companies nies were half feminine and that once the three rings were occupied by b five fie women doing such things on bareback horses as ag thirty years ago ag If achieved by a single man In a tent show satisfied the demand den and for a mar marvel marvel marvel vel And in days all the riding by b women m were on widely ly padded 1 horses Now No this circus e reus besides Its men on has five women who scorn pads and perform their eques equestrian equestrian equestrian trian gymnastics like little men Yes the circus us of 1908 1905 has come to the village of New York and no new play offers Itself In opposition That affords the excuse to borrow some neighbors children and submit to a sameness of show that would bring a I pain before the end en of the evening but that Its newness to the tots tot gives them pleasure Barnum and Bailey BaHe have crossed the Styx to the land of the un unknowable unknowable unknowable knowable where the circus business may not perplex their souls with problems problems problems lems of novelty but the managers of the circus trust which has hag concentrated ed the shows of oC Barnum Bailey Fore Forepaugh Forepaugh Forepaugh paugh the Sells and the would give a hundred thousand dollars for a thriller equal to looping the loop but different and original For three seasons seasons and now again the best device of spectacular excitement is a variant of the familiar toboggan down which a vehicle glides to a somersault at It the bottom In this years show two cars make the descent simultaneously one right after the other At the end of o othe the Incline the leading vehicle strikes a sharp upward turn of its track and andis is flung nung upward In a half haIr turn landing reversed on a padded platform while the following vehicle simply Jumps a agap agap agap gap underneath the other and alights further on It Is an ingenious piece of machinery but people are arc so accustomed accustomed accustomed tomed to that sort of or thing some by turnover rides at Coney Island that a woman would have to be killed at each performance to arouse enthusiasm Yet this act is scheduled as a desperate race and that Is what it looks lik with the rearward vehicle shooting across a break in the track and winning a lead while the other is somersaulting In the air overhead yet blase New Yorkers view It tranquilly s I The tiptop excitant of this years Barnum Bailey Batley show is easy and nearly safe A natty woman rides out outon outon outon I on a nobby hobby horse to a dinky platform which is hitched to a mock balloon and Is lifted slowly to a height of a hundred feet The beast stands stock still but his dilated nostrils foaming mouth and sweat betray b tray his agitation When Then at the top of the therise therise therise rise fireworks edging the platform are set off and while they flare fiare and sizzle around aro nd the woman and the beast the people cheer as though something dif dlf difficult difficult i and hazardous were being done Oh said an old man behind hie me I wish I could see a real good circus with a talking clown like Dan Rice I 1 wonder If that same grumbler could grin again at atan atan atan an Rices jokes Of Ot course ring jest jesters jesters jesters ers ers are Impracticable In Ie ii the enormous spaces of this circus and instead a troop of men are turned loose for pan pantomimic pantomimic fun Some rear reaf clowns are employed but the force of ot fools Is without |