| Show i MEDIOCRE E PLAYS PLA YS BETOKEN WARNING L Of THEATRICAL SEASON i BY FRANKLIN FRA KLIN FYLES 1 C I New ew York Rork Y rk May lay Ia 15 ll hired Holla d dand and Cecil Spooner are dollar size act actresses for tor parquets and sometimes som as small ng dimes for tor galleries rles As stars they y are among those that have shone like silver by contrast with the dull lead of ot the melodramas which after aCter a spell of ot exciting the groundlings thrived awhile on ridicule but now are suddenly rejected altogether Mildred is emotional and Cecil Is but both have been heroines at of many plays pla s located at royal courts with brave knights and fair ladles ladies for tor romantic companions They Th now noy no come to town simultaneously with new plays pla of ot to days New York life because the un unexpected unexpected expected obliteration of hJal sen sensational sensational drama leaves lea leoy 1 two Hundred American theatres uncertain how to entertain their audiences next winter Mildred Cecil and others ot ers hope ope the populace will rise to a a liking for tor a reasonable degree degre of ot merit In tn place of oC worthlessness and they aye are to togo togo togo go down to meet way What I mean is that The Provider and The Girl and the n test teAt tested ed td this week mak maki a con to people with no wore more than an inch be between between between tween eyebrows and ami forelocks yet bid for the favor Cavor of ot those tho e with tor for Intelligence The two authors alike aI e keep pistols out of ot sight until the third act If Ie you dont know what that means then you OU been aware of ot the Idiocy of ot cheap stage stagecraft stagecraft craft cratt during the last half decade Tho The Provider That Is ta say the breadwinner of ot a family that has hasto hasto hasto to pinch cents as though they were dollars Mildred Holland is able to get pet sympathy for tor a school teacher with a foolish mother a drunken fath father pr er r a silly sister and a wilful brother brotherto brotherto to support but Matthew Barry the theauthor theauthor theauthor author has hall felt without expressing all the pathos due from the overworked and underrated provider She has two tJ lovers loven though one a 1 bank clerk good Rood enough nough to wish to take the bur bUI burden burden den oft off re her and the other a bank pres president president Ires ident bad enough to Involve his hia rival riva in a 1 false charge of ot defalcation so asto as asto to ruin him Tie The T story reaches In the third act the hateful marriage of at Mildred mldred to the wealthy scoundrel as 15 the price e of ot her true lovers immunity under the false fuls charge harge of ot crime and her discovery dIscover t alter after all during her torturing honeymoon in Europe he has served INI INIa a year in prison for tor the theft he commit A and a Bernhardt are needed neede for the writing and acting of ot that passage Barry weakens at the crucial climax puts a pistol into acton ac acton a aton ton and makes maIms Mildred hold up the play playas as though It were a western stage stagecoach stagecoach coach andl and she a road agent Too bad Still The provider comes near to developing real value IC The and the Detective b by Charles E Blaney and J Searle Daw Dawl DawlY l lY hy y Is another and nd more determined even en desperate endeavor to find out what the masses will accept in the stead of ot the despicable forms torms of ot melodrama melo melodrama melodrama drama for Blaney controls control theatres and plays plas by b dozens Dawley Is his salaried playwright and Cecil Spooner is his foremost actress The girl of ot the I play pla is a WAif wal newspaper vendor turned 0 cha chance ce Little tUc I Ty Tykie Tykie kie kle the detective Is Isn a expert ex expert pert Haggerty anil she and he fight for fOl and against a young journalist journ Tanner accused falsely of at robbing and murdering his titled English uncle The play begins in one of those newspaper offices that dont exist any anywhere anywhere anywhere where else than on the stage with a managing editor and a city editor yell Cell yelling ing orders reporters and copy readers equally quaIl vociferous telegraphers tele and typewriters butting In loudly a dirty dirt copy boy sassing every everyone everyone one and the whole operation of go going going I ing mg to press accompanied by b the din of f a boiler shop This ml ton lon In The Girl and the Detective is not lot essential to the arousal of ot Interest t Is detrimental for a noisy ado Is made over oer the handling of ot news that I would hardly hard make an editorial staff break silence and so when the time comes for an outbreak of ot excitement nothing is left to do in the way ay of However when a reporter arrives with a mere tip for a news story of Importance and cues cU for or action actton come comeby comeby comeby by telephone followed by b a telegram telling that a man of wealth has been murdered murd red at his country place the staff of ot The Morning Wire Ire gets rea reasonably busy bus with efforts to get a scoot on rival rial Journals But It Is within fifteen minutes of ot time to close losE the last page Then Ihen Little Tykie who has wired that she is on her way with witha a beat by automobile dashes in She has haR signed her brief message L LT LT LT T The editors have wondered whom the initials belonged to and why hy their owner sent the stuff in by b wire but the smallish girl giri in shabby habby clothes muddied muddled by fast tast motoring gives Rives a quick explanation Her HN ped peddling peddling peddling of newspapers has taught her hr the utility of ot startling headlines and she Hh knows the news value of what she has hal chanced to see of the murder but she cant write and therefore has scooted desperately In a motor car with the scoop She has a rapid tongue the sight of ot the dead man has lies loosened it and while she talks in graphic slang a relay of writers puts her story Into good English to be rushed page by b page to the typesetters and the audi audience enre ence m sees seeR hew how a newspaper r staff Patches catches the press In a case like that If It you cant do a new thing on the stage then do an old thing in a new way The makers make of Tiro Girl p the Detective fully tUlly resolved on die dis discarding carding the and t Mit have gave killed sensational sen melodrama ma yet et lacking an original of oC excitement have h ve gone away back to Blue Jeans and its Us that th t all allbut allbut but cut the hero dead in two sections In a hundred dramas that trick of im hn impending i pending ending death has been played by b the bad man on the good man luau or girl with various crushing and cutting ma machines machines chines every audience knows of course lOU that the fellow worth saving will be saved and people at last took such scenes in furi fun thus laughing them off oft the stage along with the gunning and other oth r foolishness Thus Blaney Blane and Dawley would be unwise to throw their hero under a descending ton of o iron Ir n if It they the old thing In a new way But they can an anand and do doThe doThe doThe The is the owner of ot Iron wor cs s across acro s the river in Jersey Jerley He Heis HeIs Heis is one of ot those amorous devils devil who rare in real life lite but common in stage desire to tp get un lIlIng wives by criminal force So having murdered n a husband he lures a widow to his factory factors with evil design Her brother follows her bel so that he may dent you see be thrown before or un sin under der something or other that looks sure to kill him him horribly Now for the means by which the essentially same sam samei i 1 0 old of ot thing is rescued d from the wreckage of ot melodrama Moving pictures are shown between the third and fourth acts as the usage usa e eIs is in many rs theatres but here they are made to serve a dramatic purpose ingeniously They are a series of views in an rolling mill mm but placarded as the one to which the young oung woman is on her hel way and where the villain awaits her Have you ever looked into such an establishment establishment establishment by night light If It so it look to you with Its Us streams of ot mol molten molten molten ten metal pouring from the furnaces and its massive ingots on their way to be rolled into great red sputtering snaky y rails as though its grimy workmen were demons roasting souls In hell fire These pictures are impressively realistic and the last of them emerges into a stage setting v solidly illusionary with live Jive at work Ii But the episode of the tho heros peril and rescue of ot the heroine follow ollow immediately Im The exhibition serves to prepare the audience au and it gives way tot foh a n while to the office where he imprisons the young yo widow until her brother finds her he His flight with her leads lenas them to tHe same mould Ing room that has been Heavy tri hammers are thudding tl melted ore is spluttering and nothing looks the theatric atric except that the machinery ry is not manned Just now because be aus the place must have no witnesses tp the t e forth forthcoming forthcoming forthcoming coming combat The knocks knock the widow senseless and tackles s her brother broth e The antagonists are evenly matched and they wrestle wr wrestle all aU oyer the floor but villainy never novel fighting fair whacks virtue with sledge a We have seen masses of at iron lifted from moulds by cranes and lowered on a platform The villain lays the unconscious clous hero right where the next mass of metal will crush and incinerate te him It Is an anold anold anold old thing do surely but it is done iq h a il way so new as tobe be the t e making milking of ot The Girl anti anU an the Detective It worth while to tell toll tow the girl Tykie saves the reporter Tanner from being convicted of ot murder by the de detective Haggerty It is all over when Tykie T kle hauls Tanner from under the ton ingot It Is made of ot glass with the brightest of electric light inside and andas as it swings along on its overhead trolley trolley ley hy dripping d liquid fire It is a perfect imitation of ot iron hardly yet congealed from liquid In the furnace Slowly It descends on the senseless man The people gasp and exclaim with with w excite excitement mont ment men t Then Tykie swings in on ba on a rope pulls out the reporter and it Is all aU over except the applause The sudden scorn of the populace for melodrama has thrown its makers and sellers into a panic for what is to take the place of ot such stuff In lu the theatres Maybe a better grade of ot the same kind of ma material material will revive the lost thrills but absurd peril and rescue have been made so laughable that nothing I 1 think can lift it out of the slump Into which It has fallen Then too an Improvement in plots and their handling would re require requIre require quire authors with originative talent and the these travesties of tragedies are averse to paying royal royalties rO royalties al ties One of o five men who had fifty companies on tour last winter keeps an expert and paster on wages wa s the tha year around at 50 a week and his output in 1907 amounted to twenty eight ploys plays pla s of which were acted and thirteen were kept going Cipher that out and you will see that he got his useful thirteen at each and the others cost him nothing He would be lucky to obtain that number of original meritorious s and popular plays at royalties aggregating any less than in a season of at forty Corty weeks Two years ago an actor and a dra dramatist dramatist dramatist matist gat at together at a theatrical club supper Said the actor I have an idea for Cor a character that I 1 would like to have embodied d In a 11 melodrama and he described des d It The author impressed by b its novelty Will you Oll write the play the actor asked I will be glad to It If you ou can assure a production was the reply and I would divide the royalty ro half halt and half halt with you ou for the idea is worth quite as much as the composition They met a month later Well Yell said the actor I have h ve landed my char character character character acter with a manager but not your our play I 1 told him the idea and he took to Jt it but when I 1 said I had a play playwright pla playwright wright he replied that he would him himself himsel himself self sel make the play The venture has had two profitable seasons without pay payment payment payment ment of ot a cent ent to any author although as I 1 suppose the manager figured the making of the play at full tull value in his contract with the actor who originated it Wont It be hard the answer ar ver is yes for tor such a manager to acquire a habit of paying for tor such plays as the j populace will wilf wU accept In place of ot those i they now reject Nineteen theatres were thriving In New York a year ago with crude plays playa at low prices Only three of them have hao such pieces this week and three are closed Five are occupied by starred starr d actors with better matter like the two new ones described above Two are turned over to stock companies and two to moving pictures The tour four oth others ers era are devoted in this emergency and with forlorn hope to grand opera in a condition hardly grand yet many notches above the preceding plays Yes Indeed classical gets in where melodrama degenerative name for Cor gets out This is iss in the nature of ot a forlorn hope and to Increase the chances with the masses La Traviata the he musical version of Camille is preferred with its familiar famil familiar familIar heroine of ot consumptive coughs and sentimental cramps shrieking her emo emotions emotions emotions all the way up to high C Counting Count CountIng Counting Ing the alternate prima donnas six ladies la ladles ladies dies of the camella camelia have choked to death with the finish song to Armand within five days in New York t fi Aplenty of ot summer theatricals and possibly more will begin with June and the roof root gardens and the suburban resorts will take all the shows out outdoors outdoors outdoors doors for five of ot Broadways dramatic houses wont shut at all this year The dividing line between win winter winter winter ter and summer seasons has become faint atilt and now It marks nothing fur tur further further ther than the difference between some I dramatic dignity an and all Jolly diversion The earliest of the big shows made for summer The rhe had put fresh tresh bait on its hooks to catch lobsters since I described Its Us introductory introductory introductory tory performance I told you ou that a of ot girls barely old enough to escape the Gerry limit of ot 16 and small enough to be billed as shrimps were an intensely active component of ot the company but I regard as worth mentioning a song with the refrain Have you seen my baby as It seemed to have no particular particular particular ular significance But I went there again to see if It it was true as someone said that this song after the critics has seen it innocuous on the first night was given with its original wicked de design design sign Three years ago in The Wizard of Oz a fL soubrette sang about her be beloved beloved loved Sammy and pretended to locate him In a box to the best looking man manIn manIn manIn I In which she threw her notes and kisses I amorously That was easy to copy COP I and Increasingly ever ver sinca since we have bave I had winking smiling beckoning song stresses from the level of ot Anna Held with Come an play me m down to the Hug me Teddy bear of a wildcat soubrette in a female minstrel gang gangIn gangIn gangIn In the music hall of The Round the actress who sings Bings the query Where Is my m now men mentions as she refrained from doing on the opening night that the babe she has lost or mislaid Is a man and she peers from the light stage into the dim auditorium to find him A searchlight comes to her aid aims alms here and there therein in the |
