| Show AT THE THEATRE The Sunny South The programme announced the performance per-formance at the theatre last evening as A Picture of Life in the South and a fairsized audience mostly sandwiched into the upper galleries congregated to witness it The combination com-bination hails from Butte Mont The whole performance is on the same lines as that given some time ago in the theatre under the title of The South in Slavery and some of the same performers were in each The star or the leading man Is Mr Ernest Hogan and he is rather clever The Criterion quartette render some very sweet negro songs and a great amount of breakdown dances makeup I make-up the programme Grand Opera House It was almost impossible to form an idea of the effect produced upon the minds of the audience at the opera house by the performance of last evening eve-ning Engaged is always an experIment experI-ment and sometimes proves to be a practical joke It is one of the best things its gifted author ever wrote and will be remembered by those who I have seen it after The Pirates of i Penzance and Pinafore are forgotten forgot-ten To our mind W S Gilbert is the only modern humorist the man of up todate wit who is to be compared with Smollet and Cervantes Engaged En-gaged was written many years ago and was played here as far back as 1879 this seems to hold good as to that play It is said of that piece that It never yet brought any animated applause ap-plause but last night It aroused a decided de-cided chuckling of pleasure all over the house that increased as the peculiar pecu-liar flavor of the humor became moro clear and at last the enjoyment became be-came just as hearty as if it had been expressed by uproarious applause The Instructions of the author to the players are that the utmost earnestness earn-estness must be maintained throughout through-out even the most ludicrous situations and it is not to be expected that people will laugh outright while actors act-ors and actresses are going through scenes of heartrending emotion We have learned to restrain ourselves under similar circumstances on other occasions when Gilbert was not the author and when the performers perform-ers were sincere but equally ludicrous and that is why no audience applauds at the humor of Engaged But they enjoy it clear through The conscien tious Scot who wrecks trains for a liv ing and prays that the loss of life may be light the susceptible Cheviot Hill Mr Clarke upon whose tree of life the fruit of love is ever ripening who loves and interloves until his conscience con-science is racked with broken pledges and yet desires to do justice to all and is not particular to whom the pure minded and faithful Scotch lassie Maggie flat of form and void of purpose pur-pose though a sweet creation in the hands of Miss Kingsley the painfully and distressingly beautiful Winnie well played and well dressed by Miss Leigh and the romantic Belvawney of Mr Kyle all mingled well together in the most ridiculous series of complications complica-tions that could possibly be contrived Into the midst of this Gilbertlan fun Miss Barteman enters with a seriousness serious-ness that becomes her well and she proves herself to have an exquisite sense of humor without which the hole piece would be flat and still more obscure Her flood of queries when she wonders whether she is a widow and if so how much is the richest bit Imagined of seriocomic catechism that can be Miss Cooke has a comparatively un important part and Is outdone in the Scotch dialect by Miss Kingstone though none have quite caught thf proper smack of it We are still in a sea of doubt whether Engaged will prove popular during the week but there is every evidenco that the piece has been well studied and it is certainly being well played I it does not succeed it will be no fault of the members of the cast Mr Huntington is not in it it is his week of Cheap Traveling St Louis Mo March 18Nat Sebas tians pedestrian theatrical company have begun their long tramp across the country for New York City They started from Sebastians place at Broadway and Elm street promptly on time and made their first stop in East St Louis vhere they showed in Music hall to fair sized crowds They performed per-formed Henry Irvings masterpiece The Bells or the Polish Jew Between Be-tween the acts a number o specialties have been provided for The object of the trip is to decide a wager between Sebastian and Jack Freese of New York by the terms of which Sebastian bets 1000 that the company ca travel to New York by foot in 108 days without hotel accommodations accommo-dations and earn 2500 en route |
