Show Gotham Theatre News Dews BY FRANKLIN FYLES New York Nov 6 Adeline Genee Genes has made her debut as an actress in inThe InThe inThe The Silver Star Her first speaking role is a lost and found girl remark remarkably remarkably remarkably ably reticent I counted her words There were only 31 and she spoke them weakly Yet Genee Is the big name In the plays posters and pro programs programs grams and her probable share of oC the cash receipts gives half a dollar to her herat herat herat at each utterance of a word I believe that to be the highest pay reckoning it I Iby by the paucity of language ever received re received by a theatrical speaker likely I have fooled you Probably Probably Probably ably you have read of ot and maybe seen Adeline Genee the dancer During a dozen years she he has bas been a ballet pre premiere premiere premiere in London without saying any anything anything thing I saw her there last summer In one of those big beautiful music halls hall where here the people who sat in the par parquet parquet parquet at two dollars and a half a chair look like a New York opera audience Many lany of them came carne at when the hour occupied bythe by the Genee Genes I ballet began and went away as soon 1 as It was over Their quick quittance i due to disdain of the ensuing i part of the show however but to the th i fact fa t that the village of London rings ring its curfew at not a bit bitto bitto bitto to bite nor a drop to moisten it can be had in the restaurants So Londoners who would fill stomachs after an evening at a theatre must cut the on enjoyment short or locate the other in some private place I thought of that when I saw New Yorks Genee first dispersing at to a dozen splendid restaurants to drawl and dawdle daw at their tables till daylight if they wished It The Slyer Silver er Star That value could be devel developed developed developed in New York as in London with witha th tha a ballet spectacle all by itself has kept our managers until now from venturing with her here The Silver Sliver Star is an extravaganza by Harry Smith on the th American plan with tomfoolery by clowning Comedians in the same gen general general general eral way as say gy Mr Ir Lodo of Koal KonI which locates itself half a mile further up Broad Broadway with the grotesque black Bert Williams instead of the white grace of Genee for its starred feature The scheme to exploit the English com compels compels compels her to be a speaking actress so soher soher soher her untrained tongue tangles itself in ina ina ina a few lines as Viola the foundling heroine but we get all the rest of her h agile limber r entity in silent eloquence as the Christmas Fairy the Spirit of Champagne and the Flower Queen Thus an American musical farce and an English spectacular ballet are weld welded welded welded ed together effectually The Bickel aAd and Watson Vatson dialect team from vaudeville vaud yme the Sam Bernard sort of a Barney Darney arney Bernard and the humor tee Lee ee Harrison do the fooling Old maid caricaturing by Emma Janvier Is in the fun So is the Jollity of Nellie McCoy a sister of Bessie McCoy Those are a distinctly Amer American Amerlean lean ican half dozen The dancing G with a set of skilled and a resplendent outfit of scenery are the equally pronounced English portion of The Silver Star For the first time a sort of ballet Is accepted in New Nev York Surely the young oung women would dance their legs off If they were not fastened on firmly under the incitement of Ade Adeline Adeline Adeline line 0 Gt ees wonderful activities But the violence In the least vicious The earliest record of dancing that of Salome before her roy royal l step stepfather stepfather stepfather father has had deplorably nude exploitation exploitation tation lately exhibitions in the guise of classic art have been made by several bold young women But Genee makes no pernicious appeal Her dances are as innocent as a kittens play or a lambs lamb gambol She beautiful but almost pretty with a abright abright abright bright face and a n symmetrical form She the young girl that she was wa twenty years ago but time has steeled her muscles without stiffening them she sh Is a veritable gymnast at leaping and bounding and she Is as graceful in her athletic feats as any waltzing belle betle in a ballroom We e are told that Fanny Ellsler looked as modest in skirts that stopped at her knees as other women were though draped down downto to their heels That Is true of this Genee She is a wonder It seems to me worth two tw dollars and three hours to find out by seeing Mr Lodo of Koal which of Williams and Walker alker was the funny fellow The puzzle nuz puzzle nuzzle has been the same for me with many couples or whom four have lost their more amusing halves by paralytic maladies I am glad to know that the theBert theBert theBert Bert Williams who outlasts Walker Valker is the tile shuffling slouching naturally comic and artistically accomplished darkey of the two He gets along just justas as well without an interlocutor As Mr Lodo of the island of f Koal 1 oal he takes the throne of an abducted king His usual song of lugubrious complaint this time gives a verse to each of many hardluck mishaps and the refrain is That T gas as plenty His company shades off from his own black soot of cork to the cream color of octoroon show girls In a very costly and tasteful Patsy Harris proceeded shrewdly up to a certain point Of course Miss Harris may retort that I am mistaken that she is not the raison ralson detre the why it is and also financial cause and effect with Idols Last winter It got about In the more luxurious glittering circles of New York that Lonore Harrie Har Harris HarrIs ris rie the former showgirl purposed re returning returning returning turning to the stage as an emotional actress Visions of extravagant self seIf exploitation in a role no shorter or less dominant than Du Barry were natural But the brunette beauty did not fall into the trap that has caught and held the money of many another ambitious novice Any Anyone one not In the know would see nothing out of the ordinary In the announcement of Idols with Mabel Roebuck formerly leading actress for James K Hackett as the only one of three or four of the leading players to get prominence above the others For her purpose Patsy Harris chose her play well wel Roy dramatization of William J Lockes en engrossing engrossing engrossing grossing novel gives such acting opportunities opportunities opportunities in the feminine role of second secondary secondary secondary ary importance that brilliantly met might overshadow all the others It Is Isa isa isa a matter of one scene of the five for forthe forthe forthe the rest the part Is negligible Patsy assigned to Miss Roebuck the character of the wife who worships Idols In the manly forms of her husband and that bosom friend who saved his life lite at the risk of his own That friend Hugh Hygh Culman Cuiman readers will remember Is se secretly secretly married to the daughter dau of a Jew moneylender of rabid principles After dinner at his father house he asks permission to marry the girl actually already his wife and find Is refused The Jewess Is waiting In her bedroom It will not be bethe bethe b e the first time her husband has as traversed the house he supposedly has quitted We e hear the front door slam but know that really Hugh Is still stilt Indoors has i gone up to his room Thereupon the moneylender still in the salon where the young man left him has an altercation with a drunken butler who smarts under an ancient wrong and who finally in a quarrel kills him Of course you can picture the scene In the th daughters boudoir The Jew has forbidden the marriage already several months old and has sworn that should his daughter disobey him he will cut cuther cuther cuther her off from his money essential to her heras heras heras as the young husband is penniless and without prospects The girl declares d clares she regrets the marriage has learned to hate him and fears her father Finally she elicits from her husband an agree agreement agreement agreement ment to disregard the ceremony to swear to everlasting secrecy and to thus leave her free This he does and quits the silent house unaware of the murder The act ends with the girls return to her room at atthe atthe atthe the discovery of her fathers body bod lifeless in the salon Expected to Make Hit Just here Miss Harris doubtless ex expected expected expected to make one of those unlooked unlocked for successes that take on the color of a triumph Up to then she had not ob obtruded obtruded obtruded herself Her gowns were richand rich richand richand and modish to the last degree but not Unsuitable to the role or handsomer than Miss Roebucks The only trouble with plan was that she had hadnot hadnot hadnot not learned to act acL Of course where Just jUt walking and speaking words ends and acting begins is a fine point She walked and spoke easily and intelligent intelligently ly But she did nothing more to Justify the floral parade that rushed down the center aisle at the end of her great scene It was a big Tenderloin dra dramatic dramatic matic event all aIt the same The title of The Builder of Bridges might for better better pertinence be changed to The Player of Bridge Whist for Its hero a civil engineer might as well plan any other structures than bridges so far as his work affects the play and anda a woman absorbed In the cards now In vogue Is a more amusing factor in the entertainment He is personated by the Kyrle Bellew who taught Cora Urquhart Urquhart Urquhart hart Potter whatever she knows of act acting actIng acting ing and for many years ears stood by her varying fortunes fondly The woman Is embodied by Mrs Thomas In who with her Little Buttercup alongside her husbands Lord High Admiral saved Pinafore in its almost killingly bad first performance In America more than thana a quarter of a century ago Bellew and Mrs illustrate the advantage of actors over actresses in the matter of age In the new piece he at sixty is Ss the admired lover of a girl young enough to possibly be his granddaughter ter for he Is an example of but manhood well preserved but an audience would laugh at Mrs if she were to appear as his sweetheart although they are nigh about the same age Simultaneously New York gets plays from two newly noted English authors Stephen Phillips and Alfred Sutro in their Herod and The Builder of Bridges The gist of the latter play isan is isan isan an old bachelors belief that a young girl has not agreed to marry him be because because because cause she sIle reciprocates his ardent love but as a reward for his keeping her brother out of f prison The propositions are equally true The brother has taken money from his com company company company pany to gamble loses it and seems sure to be exposed His loyal sister there thereupon thereupon thereupon upon infatuates the bachelor so that he will provide the money to make good the thievery and save the thief from ruination By the time that het ht plot has worked Its purpose though she is sincerely In love with her lover but he wont believe it ft and the very agreeable play lasts until he Is convinced of the girls heartfelt desire to marry him Some Excellent Acting Much of bf f the good result Is due to the excellent acting and especially to that by the hitherto members of the cast The idea that New York first are offish to new talent is false altogether Instead they the theare are quick to perceive and reward it Gladys Hanson was applauded for Cor merit even before she shifted from duplicity to sincerity Eugene OBrien as the inexcusable and none tOo repentant thief had what show folk are fond of calling an ovation on account of unexpected unexpected unexpected ability The knew Bel Bellew Bellew Bellew lew and Mrs so well that they hands at them very lazily but i imade made much ado over oyer OBrien and Miss Hanson because they were discoveries Please permit me dear reader a para paragraph paragraph paragraph graph to make clear If I can a point of mixed complaint and complaisance for playwrights They The create characters that are definite In imagination any anyway way but the interpretation always al always always ways or often accord with their con conception conception conception Sutro meant the builder of bridges to be a man of more rugged worth than sentimental wooing a sort of modem modern Ingomar enchanted by a Parthenia but the right actor for an Ingomar in a starched shirt and creased trousers was not available so we have Instead the suave politely dignified Bellew smoothing and polishing the fellow Into a drawing room gentleman The actor does It so well too that scarcely one observer in a thousand will guess the author Intended another kind of characterization You know Shylock was played under management by come comedians comedIans comedians for merriment mainly and dignified by a serious performance until untila a century later Nobody knows which way was intended by Shakespeare when he wrote the part We can but guess at atIt atit It ft Maybe that having a popular low comedian at hand for the role he gave up the original design of Shylock and let him go for fun because that way he would bring more money Into the Globe i theatre For Fr F r alike tr like reason Sutro may maybe maybe maybe i be content with Bellows artful change r c sf i t e et 41 t r ri f r f f r i 4 K M Mt Mt Mr t i t r l ya 53 r f sr s st sf f fa r f t x l 45 E y n f r c t y 11 r s td r t r aa gl 3 F RJ j r t f f oy of x r d Ny i Y r Five of the show girls in The Time the Place and the Girl of the bridge builder from an Ingomar to an Admirable Crichton While the first performance In this country of Herod was rekindling ad admiration admIration admiration for Stephen Phillips Phil Ups he was passing through bankruptcy as the rt rl result sult suit of fifteen years devotion to the loftiest literary creation Wallace allace Ir Irwin Irwin win is the only poet who owns an auto automobile automobile automobile mobile Yet Herod is too grand an achievement to admit of such mundane And William Faversham s production n of It and performance of or orthe the chief role arouse too profound a re respect If hardly complete satisfaction for one to Indulge in flippancy Fa Faversham Faversham proclaims a nobe ambition more eloquently than he could In words by the fact of producing a great tragedy tragedy tragedy dy of doubtful commercial value when he might be making sure money with romantic melodrama The single scene seen the audience hall In palace at Jerusalem Is a labyrinth of steps c of gold of parapets of pillars of bronze doors and beyond an expanse of landscape seen under changing lights of night and day Beautiful in color varied and eloquent of infinite research are the gowns the royal robes the th priestly vestments and the Jewelled ar armor armor armor mor that clothe the crowds who people the scene But most admirable of all to an observer versed In stage effects is the variety and meaning of the many pictures and pageants introduced into this single setting Phillips Herod Phillips Herod Is the only play In which he has sustained that unity of nf word and action which eluded su such f great predecessors rs of his hie when writing for the stage as Tennyson and Swin burne Reading this play one might discern that rare quality seeing It per pt formed one Is convinced The pOEtry of It Is not parcelled into semide semidetached passages pass like the songs son in a i comic opera but is part of the rich rui weave of the fabric as with a Wagner music drama Herod would seem t be too easily available to readers to tt Tw b unfamiliar yet et it is te not ten teb years oM oli oMand oh and ind contemporary poetry travels travet SOH slow slowly Ot OtI ly I So I may quote as 8 an RD example of f genius such a creation of ot r ras as this And ADd all him is s A sense of some something thing coming oa |